Uncle Trevordomus

I had been predicting the birth of my niece, Dusty Sade, for some time now, but I was wrong every time. She came into the world this past Tuesday, February 22, so now I don't have to constantly ask my sister "have you had your baby yet?" I'm sure that's the least of her worries.

It's hard to describe just what's going on in me right now, other than the monster case of indigestion or whatever it was that almost kept me up all night and may or may not be related to the questionable nature of the hamburger steak that was served for dinner (the less you know about this, the better). In regards to my niece, I mean, it's odd because she went from being this abstract concept (i.e., there's a baby in my sister's belly) to a real, live, screaming and crying thing. I've held her twice now, and each time she stretches and squirms and makes horrible faces like she's about to cry, and I can't help but badger perfect strangers with the picture I now have on my cell phone when I first open it up, of her looking at me like I'm nuts. I love the little stinker.

And yes, I have indeed shown off the picture I took of her, she's just about the cutest thing I've seen. It's different than, say, when a cousin or uncle of mine has a kid (as has happened over the past six years now), I mean, those babies are cute and all, but this is different. My sister, whom I can still recall as a bald-headed little stinker, has her own now, covered in hair and sporting some tiny, tiny hands and feet. It feels like I'm closer to this one than to my cousins or whatnot.

In the past, I've wondered what it might be like to have a family of my own, kids that look like me but hopefully have better luck in social situations in which they have to talk to girls. Not being sexually active in high school did mean that I avoided the pitfall of having a kid right before graduation that could, in turn, derail my chances to have fun away at college, but then I didn't have much fun in college, either. Also, there was the whole "not being sexually active" part, which was not by choice. Anyway, I would like to think I'd be a good dad, perhaps because I'm something of an okay babysitter (who else would let his three-year-old cousin "ground and pound" him for her amusement while tears streamed down his face from all the pain she was inflicting with her surprisingly muscular fists?). Time will tell if I can land a girlfriend, much less a baby mama. But for the time being, I will try to be the best uncle I can to little Vanity T'Pau.