New Addition

Text conversation twixt me and my mother.

ME: "In one of her pics, Baby looks like Uncle Spiro."
MOM: "No she does not!"
ME: "Yes she does. She looks like she is crying though. In the one Teacher* has as his profile pic, she looks happy, adorable, and utterly non Spiro."
MOM: "Why do you say she looks like Spiro?"
ME: "I don't know, it just popped into my head when I saw the pic. She looks like a wizened, old, Greek man."
MOM: "Don't tell Teacher she looks like Spiro."
ME: "No shit, why do you think I told you? And it is only in one pic."
MOM: "Just making sure."

I have a new niece! Teacher's wife gave birth at some point on February 4, I believe. Hard to know given that they live in U.A.E. and I got the info second hand from my mom. She is adorable and she looks content in the profile picture that I mentioned. But she seriously looks like a cranky old man in another picture. I'm sure all babies do.

I have a reputation for not liking children, mainly because I always say that I don't. That isn't really the case though. Kids are fine, they are whatever. I have more sympathy for crying children, especially infants, now than when I was younger because I finally understand that, dude, their kids. If a little kid is hurt or ill or unhappy, s/he doesn't have the same resources that an adult does so crying and tantrums are the go to. Now when I see a toddler throwing a fit or being loud in a store, I just think "poor thing" and "poor parent(s)."I'm just not very comfortable around them and I have no desire to have my own. I've gotten a lot better with the comfort thing, mostly because of my brother's older daughter and the fact that little girls in Arizona, belonging to my mother's friends, really seem to like me. But I don't know how to talk to them or what to do with them and am extremely nervous in their company.

That being said, I'm stoked about the new addition to my brother's little family and hope that his three year old takes it in stride. So happy birthday new little niece. I'm sure you'll be very feminine and beautiful as baby faces don't last**.

*I have nicknames for everyone on this blog and most of them, Hunter, BFF, Birdie, Stalker, and Spark Plug, I can keep straight. But when it comes to my family, I trip up and cannot, for the life of me, remember what I've called them in the past. My middle brother is a teacher so I'm hoping Teacher is something I can hold in my little brain.

**That might not be true. My mom tells a story about how, when I was a little girl, she had a picture of me as a baby in my room. I reportedly told her to "take that mad baby out" of my room. My first boyfriend told me that when he first approached me, he was kind of nervous because I always look pissed off. But I'm no longer bald and I don't hang out with my mouth open so, you know...