Baby Sandra

For years, I gave my Mom a hard time about not having any pictures of me as a baby. I'm the youngest of three. And my sisters were some sort of amazing miracle. They were first, they were identical twins, and they were born with a full head of hair so they were amazingly photogenic from day one on this planet. I was last, just one baby, not a boy, and bald so I was not as popular. The only photographs my Mom had of me started on my first birthday. I mean there is an entire album of my sisters' first everything. First time they said "coo", first time they rolled over, first time they farted, first time they blinked twice, first time they lifted their heads, first time they waved, first time they looked sideways — I'm not exaggerating. You should see the album. Then you get to my page in one of our family albums and it's "Sandra's First Birthday." Shoot, I had to wait a year before anybody noticed me and put me in an album. I thought they might be waiting for me to grow some hair, but even then what little hair I did have was up in a ribbon — you know the kind they put on girls so you don't mistake them for a boy. 

We have since learned that Mom switched to slide film for a year, my first year. All my baby pictures are on slides. Apparently it was the wave of the future back then. Somewhere around my first birthday, Mom decided it wasn't for her and she went back to film negatives. 

This year for my birthday, she converted a bunch of them into digital photographs for me. I think she's tired of me giving her a hard time. 

The shot above is my Mom, sister Cindy on the left, sister Shelley on the right and me, the bald one in the middle. I imagine that my Dad is taking the picture.

So there you have it, I did exist before my first birthday and there is evidence of it.