Basic Instincts

So I'm in Atlanta doing omugwo and I've checked out the baby (my niece). In the words of Steve Brady's mother (all Sex and the City fans will know what I'm talking about), she's a cute fuckin' kid! Looks just like my brother, which means she looks just like my sister, Nat...she looks like Nat's baby pictures, actually. I can already tell we're gonna have a beauty on our hands!

It's weird that I feel this excited about her, cuz I'm not a baby person. Actually, I can't stand children. I've met a couple of friendly ones over the past few years, and I tend to get along with those ones for a few minutes at a time because they have the ability to make me laugh and engage me a bit. Most children, however, are assholes and I ain't afraid to let 'em know it! That being said, I was pretty excited to see my baby Nomsy (whose full name is Innomama Osunyameye Dickson--named after my mommy [and me, and me!] and Nat), which was also a bit disturbing because I was wondering whether I was truly changing. I've been positive since I was fourteen that I didn't want children, at least not more than one just for sake of say "I don born pikin, make una lef me see road", and people keep telling me that "don't worry, one day soon, your biological clock will start ticking and you'll change." When I hit 24 and I was still saying kids were not for me, they said, you're at that age, don't worry, you'll see. So I was a bit apprehensive when I met my baby, cuz I didn't want them to be proved right and yet, here I was all giddy with excitement because we finally have a baby girl in the family.

The first time I held her to put her to sleep, I held her close to my chest, over my left shoulder. Because my mind thinks like I'm writing a novel half the time, I began to subconsciously compose sentences that would describe the maternal feeling that I was supposed to be having. I did this in anticipation of the feeling, but when I kept waiting and waiting for it to kick in and all I felt was a little bit of gas, I was actually very relieved. I'm still kulutempa--no more, no less. It was great to be able to help out the fam by trying to make her sleep--which I am very good at, by the way--but being here has totally confirmed my feelings that I don't really want this for myself. I will make a wicked aunt, though. My plan is to make myself her favorite aunt, by being spontaneous and fun (and rich) and constantly buying her stuff her parents don't want her to have (thanks for the lessons, Aunty Gubsie). We will call them 'contraband' and we will sneak her into my room so she can enjoy them. She will spend her summer vacations with me and we will travel the world, to Spain and India and South Africa (which is something that Gubsie and I never did, but no matter...this will only make me the best aunt that ever lived!). She will tell me all her boyfriend secrets and I will give her great advice and she'll talk to me more than to her parents. It'll be great fun.

In the meantime, I'm making a tape for her that she can look back on when she's 24 and contemplating the craziness that is childrearing. She can watch herself howling at midnight, then again at 2 in the morning, and at 5:30 and at 6:51, see the haggard looks on her father, mother and aunt's faces, and tell herself that baby = madness, whereupon she will put on some wicked stilettos and head out to the club. To have fun with the girls, of course; no sleazy men for my baby girl.

It's already 8:30 and I've slept for about an hour. Ok, ok...3 hours. Either way, babies blow. Going to shit and shower, and hopefully that'll wake me up. Pictures later!