Flashback Friday - The Beginning

Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. Heck, let's make it a twofer to kick things off.

That's me. And that's my Uncle Jeff. I love this picture for three reasons: First, I dig how seventies it is. Especially since this was 1985. I mean, check out the afghan on the couch, and Jeff's shirt, and the lace curtain, and the yellow undertones. That's authentic vintage for you. Second, I love this because according to family folklore, only about three weeks before this was taken, when my mom was still prego, her car was hit by a drunk driver. My mom was in the passenger seat and Jeff was in the back. When he saw what was going to happen, he unbuckled his seat belt and reached around the front seat to hold my mom and her belly back from flying into the dashboard. (Awww.) Third, I love this because I'm pretty sure this is as close as I came to Jeff until I was a teenager because he scared me to death. He's a lawyer and pretty intense. (Obviously I didn't know about the car accident, otherwise I would have seen right through his gruff exterior to his mushy insides.)

And here's my official first photo.

Fun facts:

• I was born 9 months and 1 day after the parentals were hitched. My grandma thought this was scandalous. She called my mother on the morning of May 17, 1985 and told her that now it was okay to have me. At 11:55 p.m. my mother obliged.
• I was born completely bald and stayed that way for a good two years. Strangers would come up to my mom and ask what the boy in the pink frilly dresses and glued-on bows was named.
• My mom still wears those glasses. Just kidding. (Last year she got Lasik...)