We're trying to convince people we're unrelated. No luck.
I have a niece. She’s quite possibly the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. She’s also smart, curious, talkative (for a non-talker), a good sleeper and a great eater. She’s the apple of my parents’ (her grandparents) eye. In fact, she’s one of those babies that is amenable to and thus loved by everybody; quiet, inquisitive, smiley. And she seems to me very much the product of my brother Mervyn and his wife, Amy. Which is probably her greatest asset. If she ever turns out to be some fraction of them split down the middle, she’ll be one awesome human being. She was born in Kuala Lumpur almost a year ago and will celebrate her first birthday in just over a week’s time close to her new home, in her maternal grandmother’s home in Toronto.
Her name is Leighton.
And she looks a lot like I did at her age. Which is to say, I looked a lot like a girl baby. Heck, even my parents dressed me in baby girl clothes. And while I think those feminine foundations are partly responsible for my rather stunning and delicately handsome face, let us be honest and hope poor, little Leighton goes no further than her infancy in resembling her 34 year-old uncle. But beyond babyhood resemblance, I hope and expect that we will have a long future together discovering the world, making peace with and understanding all the things in it, and generally growing up.
She is very cool. Happy 1st birthday Leighton. Love, me.
Looking together, towards a bright future (our Chinese propaganda poster)
cuteness overload. Leighton, that is