My First Niece

I was 6 when she was born.  The first year was fine, but once she became mobile I was made responsible for keeping her out of trouble.  That was a big job.  Once she became verbal it was an impossible job.  :)

Much like her other uncle (my middle brother, the open container of gasoline), she seemed to love getting into trouble.  I wasn't an angel myself, but in this scenario I was the angel on one shoulder and he was...well, he was the one on her other shoulder.  lol!  And the two of them bonded over that. 

Every summer she spent two weeks with my parents.  My brother was the fun uncle and I was the uncle tasked with helping my parents try to change her from a spoiled brat into a regular person.  Most summers it worked.  She went home with manners.  But by Christmas they were gone.  It was frustrating.  Today she is a contributing member of society (sort of...she works for an insurance company :), a wife and mother. 

But my main image of her is that of a 2.5 year-old, watching my brother and I fight in the front yard (we were only wrestling).  I was 9 and he was 12.  It would be a few more years before I could take him on a regular basis, but that day I had him.  I'd twisted him into a  pretzel and had complete control of the situation.  My niece didn't like that and decided to help her favorite uncle--by yelling at me to "leave him alone" (HE started it) and by kicking me in the face and head.  To stop her I would have to let him go--and I really didn't want to let him go.  So that went on for quite a while.  I finally yielded when I realized my brother was more amused by our niece kicking me than he was upset about losing to his little brother. 

They made quite a tag team back in the day.  :D