Birthdays!!!

Today is a double birthday in my family!  My Grandmama turns 82 and my niece Alayna turns 1!  

  

(If you click on her birthday pic you can see her extra long eyelashes!  The necklace is mine that I won, made by Ugandan women....I was wearing it, she was cranky, and so I gave it to her to wear for the pic.....she barely looked up from it, so this was a quick pic, and she was not pleased to be distracted from it!)
A year ago I was in Alexandria, Egypt, checking my e-mail at the library and found out that my niece had been born.  I remember being so pissed off to discover it had been on my grandmother's birthday.  I could feel the rage and jealousy coursing through my veins, something I'm not proud to admit.  I am my grandmama's only granddaughter, her first, and we have always had a special bond that never was quite replicated with anyone else.  And my brother and I don't get along (in fact currently he's barred from the whole family).  So I was mad, and ashamed at not feeling happy for what should have been a joyous occasion.  

  

Now, I could never imagine being upset about something like that.  My niece nearly gets kidnapped every time we are home, and I'm working on a relationship with her mother (who dumped my brother last Spring, smart woman!).  She is my most favoritest person is what I tell her as I toss her in the air (apologizing to G).  Garret and I got the wonderful opportunity to play parents for a week while we were home, and she was spoiled beyond belief by attention.  We woke up with her at 12:40 one morning and played until 3:30, singing, dancing, just being.  Greatest loss of sleep excuse of my life!  We taught her to fake cough, make kisses (puckering up and making the smacking noise), and to wave bye bye (although she usually waves towards herself).  And Garret is trying very hard to get her to make noises like a furby and then when given a bite of food to say "Yummmm".  He thinks she's the neatest thing, and gets teary eyed about her.  He told me he could never imagine loving somebody so much who he's not blood related to (I think he forgets marriage doesn't make us blood related either, dork).  

  

So Happy Birthday to my Grandmama and Alayna.  Two of my favorite people sharing one special day!

* And if you clicked on her birthday pic and happened to notice the purplish part of her upper arm, don't worry....it's been there since birth!  It gave her parents a heart attack because it's puffed up like a knot and looks like a bruise.  It's a rare-ish type of birthmark (deep infantile hemangioma) that the doctor's promise will fade over the next couple of years until it's gone.  Odd, but it did look smaller at Christmas than it was this summer.