HAPPY BIRTHDAY MONKEYGIRL!

on this joyous day, in 1995, my god daughter was born.  A whole 4 pounds of eyerolling, hair grabbing, hollering, side eyein bundle of joy and rebellion.  Only baby in the incubator room lifting her head up and I think trying to get out of that damned plastic box.  Gosh I love that kid.  You see, she was born my senior year in high school and at the school I attended, seniors were pretty much finished with classes by the end of March.  (The rest of the year was spent preparing for the senior play and doing community service.)  So I spent alot of time with her, I watched her just about every day until I left for college.  And when I was away, my Mom used to get her and bring her up to see me.  They would usually come up on the weekend and I will never forget the time they were there for one of my volleyball games.  She charmed just about everyone in the stands by the time the match was over.  My coach had to cut the post game meeting short because MonkeyGirl would not be denied!  And she was absolutely adorable with her too small self walking and talking when no one would expect her to.  We were once at the library in the children's room at Grand Army Plaza (it a huge library in Brooklyn that in this amazing building - actually alot of the libraries in Brooklyn are architectural gems) and this maybe 8 month old baby waddles by.  MonkeyGirl was about 2 at the time, and still small for her age, she's gonna look at me and say, "Babies can't walk!"  The kids Mom looks at Monkey at says, "well they aren't supposed to talk either, but look at you!"

She's almost as tall as me now, in fact she can fit most of my clothes and some of my shoes.  We're even built alot alike.  Shes a dancer where I was an athlete, so she's not a musclely as I was at that age.  Lucky her.  The summer before my sophomore year, my varsity basketball team went to an Invitational Basketball Camp.  I spent 2 weeks doing nothing but playing basketball and running basketball related drills.  Two days after I got home, I had to go to a wedding.  It was the first time that I had worn anything besides workout gear since being home.  I put on my girly pink dress, took one look in the mirror and burst into tears!  "I look like a boy!"  It was terrible, I looked like a body building reject.  Mommy still made me go to the wedding though.  What's one of my post without a crazy tangent!  I know alot of you were expecting it and I sooo hate to disappoint!  You should see my biceps after I've actually been working out consistently...

Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled post, I am so glad to have that no longer little girl in my life.  So I'm making her Red Velvet Cupcakes for her party tomorrow!  I might even whip out Mommy's decorating tools and get my icing flower on!

AND as a bonus tangent I present to you my theory about birthdays.  When I was a kid and someone asked me how old I was I would say something like, "well traditionally I'm 10 years old, but actually I've been alive for 11 years."  It used to piss Hautechick off for some reason.  But its true!  When some one celebrates a birthday, they are actually celebrating the completion of that year, so when you turn 30 (like I did last November) you are actually beginning your 31st year of life.  I used to wonder about why age was counted this way.  I also wonder if it has anything to do with high infant mortality rates that used to exist before medical practices were standardized.  AND since this post was in honor of my 13 year old god daughter, I didnt even curse!