Happy Birthday Bo Bo!

Me, Bo and our dad at the wedding - I think this is just a crazy cool picture.

Birthday Boy and his lovely woman, Erica.

Me and Bo, my "baby" brother (who towers over me).

It's my brother's birthday today (Aug. 2) so Happy Birthday Bo! I doubt he reads this, or any member of my family for that matter, but just in case - I didn't forget! I hope you have a great birthday! Every year I add another year to my perverbial cake I don't really feel the years adding up, but every year, a few months after my birthday, when his birthday comes it really hits me how old I really am - my baby brother is how old?? Damn I must be getting up there!

I wish I had some cute story about my thoughts on when he was born but I wasn't there. I was a bit over two and got stuck at Grandma's house I think while the whole birthing thing was going on. When he came home I probably just thought he was a little blob (like the thing in The Big Dumbeldore in the Sky at the end of Harry Potter 7).

I don't think I was a very good sister. When he was little I used to think he was my doll and I'd drag him around. If he wasn't bigger then me I probably would have tried to dress him up and put bows in his head, but he got out of that one. I did tip over my rocking chair once and I think I blamed it on him and I think it worked - sorry Bo!

Then when he got a little older, but was still little, I used to just poke him until he bit me and then I would scream that he bit me. I would still do that but I bet it would leave a crazy bite mark now.

I think I tried to drown him in our pool when he was little (like under 4 or 5). He was in one of those tube floating things that goes around your middle. Well, I tipped him over in it and his head was stuck under water. I don't remember how he got up/out but I think it involved a parent jumping in to save him. Sorry Bo!

We used to come up with crazy imaginative games to play - remember, we had no cable tv (while he has fallen prey to the evil that is cable, I have stood strong in the face of Charter - that, and we're cheap and never home so it's not worth it for us to get it). We lived on a larger piece of land in the coutry and we each had an area that was "our" fort. I don't know if we ever actually built anything in "our" forts but they were ours and we used to have wars and stuff between then.

When we were both little our parents planted each of us a dogwood tree on said piece of land. When his was still little he tried to ride it like a pony and it sort of bend down - until this day (or until a few years ago when our dad sold the land) the tree was still sort of bent over - the funniest looking dogwood ever.

I used to call him "Bubba" for a very very long time - like up until a few years ago - I can't remember particularly why but I just started calling him that one day. Not in a bad way or anything but just my pet name for him. It was just me - no one else called him that so it was just between us.

When he was about in the 4th or 5th grade the whole Gulf War started and Iraq actually invaded Kuwait on his birthday. For years I tried to convince him that the whole invasion/war was his fault - sort of like someone trying to convince their sibling that a divorce/fight/insert bad event here was their fault. This is the same family that for years kept telling my littlest brother that the word "gulable" was not in the dictionary.

We got our first computer an Apple IIGS while I was in the 4th grade. It had a black screen and green writing and had a dot-matrix printer. No Windows yet. So Bo must have been in about the 2nd grade then - and damn could that kid program the hell out of that computer. It was all BASIC programming back then and he was insanely good at it. That was when I really realized that I will never be as smart as he is. As the computers got better, so did he. And now that's what he does for a living. Insanely smart kid. Wow, what does that say about me? He was great at computers as a kid and ended up a web/computer/programming/network guy. I ended up a lawyer - I must have been really good at arguing as a kid. :) He was always great at math too - tons of those trophies - he could probably build a large monument out of them if he wanted to.

He always had the hair that I wanted - straight with a bit of curl and pitch black. I got this sort of brownish curly/wavy sort of mop hair and he got this gorgeous black hair. He grew it out for a long time, but he's cut it now.

His real name is actually Brian Oliver - hence why we call him "Bo" (in case you don't see it, that's his initials). When we were little one of us kids realized that "Bo" is pronouced the same as "Bow" and from then on, every year on his Christmas presents we give them to "Bow." Yes, to this day I still find this hilarious. I doubt he does and he's probably sick of it 20 years later, but damn do I think it's funny.

It's funny to think of little siblings - to me he will always be my baby brother - this little guy who is just so "young" - yet he's not so young anymore - he's got his own house now and a great girl he's living with (that we are all not-so-patiently waiting for him to marry), a great job - he's made quite a nice life for himself as an adult. But he'll still always be my little brother. Happy Birthday Bubba!!!