My niece Marci has had her baby and it’s a girl!  Yippee.  Welcome Lenora Ann!

Marci was one of those people who didn’t know the gender of her baby before it popped out.  Personally, I WANT TO KNOW NOW!!!!  Always.  Otherwise, the kid is going to spend the first few months in yellow and green.  But her baby, her choice.  And I am tickled to have another baby girl in the family.

I love my nephews very much, but baby girl stuff is just so stinkin’ cute!  Zulily here I come – again (okay, I never left.  I love me some Zulily).

AND I got the most wonderful book that features all pictures of my grand-niece Giselle!  She is one smiling baby!  What a cutie.

I was a girlie girl growing up.  When my sister wanted to play cowboys, I insisted on being the saloon girl!  (Explains a lot doesn’t it?)  I would put on my grandmother’s half slips and high heels and traipse around the neighborhood.  I always wonder how my grandma felt about having her under garments on display.  I guess it didn’t bother her, since she never denied me access.

Little boys are cool too, of course.  They love gross stuff, and this fat old lady knows a lot about and has a high tolerance for gross stuff.

Plus I have almost no sense of smell, so farts have no power over me.  If you knew any of us Cotters, male or female, you would appreciate just how valuable an attribute this is (I personally believe my olfactory nerves were long ago seared to a crisp by my Dad’s legendary farts – he would always say, “It’s not so much the smell as how it makes my eyes burn.”)

I never wanted kids of my own.  I am well aware of how incredibly selfish I am at heart.  Kids take up so much time and they are so expensive.  I have nothing but respect for those who choose to raise children – theirs or someone elses.  (It’s the raising up of a kid that makes you a parent, not just having a baby.)

I LOVE being an auntie / grand-auntie.  I get to spoil the kids and never suffer the consequences.  (And when they’re old enough, I have all sorts of swear words to teach them!)  How cool is that?