Happy Birthday, Uncle David!

Today is my brother's birthday. He is almost three years older than me. Most of my childhood memories include him in some form or fashion. . .

I have stitches on my chin from an unfortunate see saw incident at my MawMaw's house. I'm not pointing any fingers.

I couldn't sit down comfortably for several weeks after I "fell" off his shoulders and either bruised or broke my tailbone. I was too scared to tell my parents so I lived in pain.

I remember watching TV after school and polishing off an entire brand new bag of BBQ chips with him and getting in trouble for it.

I laugh every time I put sheets on a bed because of him. We had to do this chore together as kids and like most people one of us would sort of throw/pop the sheet across the bed to the other person. He would always yank it out of my hand. Over. And. Over. Every. Single. Time. Or he would lay down on the bed underneath the sheet before it landed and act like he was dead. It is hard to explain. I guess you just had to be there. What can I say -- we lived in the country and we had to make our own fun. Let's just say normal people can make a bed in 7 minutes. With David, it took at least 30.

We watched WWF on Saturday mornings before it was even called WWF and perfected our wrestling moves like The Claw.

Speaking of fighting, when we did get into it like most brothers and sisters do, we were able to fight almost silently so Mom wouldn't hear us. We lived in a very small house. We usually stopped when I yelled, "Mom, David is hitting me." Worked almost every time.

Once we got sent to our rooms for fighting. Mom was in the kitchen. I was happily playing with my Barbies in my room minding my own business when David said, "Rachel, you better get back in your room. Mom told you to stay in your room." I was shocked. I WAS IN MY ROOM! Never left it. Mom came down the hall and I got in trouble AGAIN while David was saying, "I told her to go back to her room." That was just wrong.

While it wasn't the Heimlich, he did turn me upside down by my ankles and shake me when I choked on a peppermint candy. It worked and I didn't die.

We've played more board games than any siblings on the face of the earth. I won't go in to who cheated the most.

He drove me to school when I was a dorky freshman and he was a cool junior.

He wouldn't let any of his friends date me.

One of his smartest decisions was marrying his wife Monette.

He is great with computer stuff and helps us with computer questions although I am sure it annoys the heck out of him.

He makes a jaguar animal sound that terrifies most small children including mine. Yet they ask him to do it again and again.

He is a great dad even though he has more toys and DVDs than his all of his four children combined.

I wished we lived closer so we could see him more often.

Happy Birthday, David. We love you and we hope you have a wonderful day.