My baby niece could probably use an agent. She is the most photographed, videotaped, and documented baby in the world. That's because she's a firstborn.

My brother-in-law was showing me and other family members video he had taken of her when she was just three months old. She was sitting in her car seat. Just sitting there. For seven and a half minutes, Mike just videotaped his daughter sitting and staring back at him. It was like watching an early Warhol film. I was relieved when he finally cut the shot, and we switched to a scene of her lying in her crib, waving her little feet in the air. For five minutes.

You just know that baby is growing up thinking that her father has a camera growing out of his face. If he ever puts it down, she won't recognize him.

I'm also a firstborn. You should see the documentation my parents kept. They didn't have a video camera, but with the constant stream of pictures they kept taking, they could make one of those little animation flip-books of me.

In fact, the obsession started even before I was born with one of those "planning for baby" books. Mom kept a detailed list of potential names, headlines from the newspapers, shower gifts, bizarre food cravings, mood swings, and an autograph from the surgeon who removed the shish kebab skewer Mom plunged through Dad's arm when he made what he thought was a funny remark about her weight gain.

There's even a place in the baby book where the parents can record their first words upon seeing the baby. Under "Mother Said," my mom actually wrote that she said: "It's a girl!"

Well, duh. Come to think of it, I think Mom was trying to cover up what was really said in that delivery room. Both she and Dad have dark brown hair, Dad went on a lot of business trips, and I was born with bright red curly hair. I think there's a pretty good reason why Mom left the space under "Father Said" blank.

Baby #2, my sister Sara, was born three years later. Another baby with red hair. Mom left the "Mother Said" and "Father Said" part completely blank in that baby book. But she left many entries blank in Sara's book. I guess it's hard to make the time to thoughtfully record your maternal hopes and dreams when you're seven months pregnant and your three-year-old firstborn is smearing apple- cinnamon oatmeal all over the television screen because Mr. Rogers says the people in his neighborhood should be creative and artistic.

My poor brother got the worst of it. I looked through his mostly-empty baby book once. Gone was the neat handwriting of my book. Instead, under "Possible Names If It's a Boy," Mom scrawled "CORY." My brother's name is John. However, he was born with dark brown hair and looks like a perfect mix of both my parents, so we have more detail in the "Mother Said, Father Said" section:

Mother: I don't believe it! Father: It's a boy!

I'm sure Mom was just too busy to record Dad's additional comments, which I imagine were "It's about damn time! Maybe those @#$%ing neighbors will quit gossiping now! Does this hospital have a bar?"

I have a "School Days" book, along with everything else. Copies of every school picture, report card, and scripts from school plays. My parents even kept paintings I did in kindergarten in case I suddenly turn into an artistic genius and they can sell my early work on eBay and retire. (I am particularly proud of my "Sky and Grass" period pieces in which I defined the sky by a straight blue line across the top of the page and the earth by a straight green line across the bottom. The bidding starts at $4 million.)

My sister's School Days book is pretty well detailed up until second grade. After that, anyone reading the book would think she just dropped out of Berkeley Glenn Elementary and ran away from home.

And my brother doesn't even have a School Days book. We do, however, have the one copy of his seventh grade school photo that he hasn't destroyed – taken during his "zits and glasses" phase.

That's what he gets for being the baby.

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