JMorgan

Last updated 01:00, Thursday, 13 September 2007

I BECAME an auntie this summer to a baby girl. Oh yes! As soon as I heard the news I was like a whirling dervish around the shops picking up anything with a pink tinge to it.

Dressing small boys can be fun, but the choice of clothing for girls is so fabulous, it is physically impossible to walk away from those tiny pair of sequined booties or that fairy princess dress with 34 layers of chiffon covered in 125 tiny rosebuds.

I can barely contain my excitement at the thought of buying dolls for Christmas, fluffy pink winter jackets and books all about mermaids and ballerinas.

After a decade of Thomas the Tank, Bob the Builder, wrestlers, football, passing wind contests, noisy testosterone Playstation games, it will be a soothing balm to my fevered brow to go shopping for pink lace socks and prams.

Of course, there is the added joy regarding the latest baby in our family: I will be able to HAND HER BACK.

Babies are a lot of fun when you only have them for five hours at a time. This is enough to feed them, push them asleep in a pram, dress them in lovely little frilly clothes and show them off to your mates.

As soon as it looks as if there may be a faece-filling nappy moment, a potential tantrum, a sleepless night or anything which interrupts me watching What Not to Wear, it is bye-bye baby.

I know this may sound a bit harsh, but as every grandparent knows, there is nothing like holding your own flesh and blood, loving them to bits – and then running for the hills.

Since my own kids claim I’m a bad mother because they don’t have a 32in TV screen in their bedroom, my plan is to be the perfect auntie.

As I’ve told my little niece, Mia, she needs to stick with me since I’ll be the one teaching her to accessorise, buying her whatever she wants and, as her dad’s older sister, I have a lot of info on him she may, when she gets older, be able to use as a bargaining tool.