She’s here, she’s here, my little niece is here! My rockstar sister brought her into the world on Saturday morning, and she has spent the last five days being perfect. Please, just look at this face.

Her name is Fiona Catherine, and I’m allowed to call her Fee, but not Fifi.

So, naturally…

“Come, Fifi,” I say in an important voice, whenever anyone offers to put her on my lap. As if we are off to the country club to meet her friends Binky and Peroxide. As if we are having tea with the Queen.

“Fifi makes her sound like a dog,” my sister complains. But this is not a good argument for me, because my own daughter’s nickname is Scout, and although we were thinking Scout Finch from To Kill a Mockingbird, it turns out to be a very doggy kind of name.

The week after Scarlett was born, my grandmother called to tell me that not one, but two sitcoms she had watched that night featured dogs named Scout. She cackled into the phone and hung up. Read More>