My Favorite Niecy

KellieLynn (KL for short, lest I get carpel tunnel) is my favorite niece. Well she is my only niece also but she rocks. How can I not think this of someone who looks like me when I was a kid, talks like me and acts like me all the time. Sometimes too much, to my sister's chagrin.

KL is 8 going on 35. She has always been around adults so she has always acted older than her age. She is constantly making me laugh with her antics, a few that I am going to share here. When she was 2, my sister and KL were baking cookies one day. Kimberley (my sister and further referred to as Kiki from here on forward - what is it with super long names?) let KL help and all went well. Later that day, Kiki had to go out to run errands and left KL home with her Dad. She disappeared for a couple of minutes, he went off to find and he did. She had taken a dozen eggs out of the refrigerator, broke them, and was baking on the floor just like Mommy and her had done earlier. She was a mess, she was covered in goo and she looked like she had just hatched from the egg herself!

When KL was 4 we were all home in NY and we were playing restaurant. KL has the kitchen set, the food, the little cash register that beeps and lights up. She was the waitress and we were here patrons. Let me tell you she was meaner than a 40 year diner veteran waitress. I asked for french toast and a chocolate sundae, she said too bad and gave me pancakes and a strawberry sundae. My Dad asked for a hamburger, she gave him a hot dog. You never got what you wanted even though you picked food she actually had! The best came when she was the customer. I gave her the bill, told her it would be $12.50 and she looked at me dead serious and said "Lady, do you take debit?"

Around that same time KL had an obsession with escalators. It did not really matter if we really needed to take one, if one was within 50 yards, we had to go on it, if to no more than go up it and then go right back down. She also did not like anyone standing on her step, so much so that when a complete stranger at the mall put her foot on KL's step, she turned around matter of factly and said "Lady, get your own step!"

My niece is one of the most amusing people I know. From her made up phases 'frappaccino cappuccino' at age 2 when I dragged her to a Starbuck's to 'cram chicky nutter' you never know what is going to come out of her mouth. I am off to Disney World with her tomorrow for what promises to be an adventure and a laugh a minute!