Me and my cousin Nikki were raised like sisters.  If you saw one of us--you saw the other one. We used to even dress alike.  Little multi-colored mini skirts with head bands--like the kind LaToya Jackson used to wear (Lawd, at one time in my life I thought LaToya Jackson was cool--I must have been smoking crack at a young age).

Anyway--when I left down south to live in Minnesota with Shawn--I mainly lamented the fact that I'd be away from my cousins.  I love 'em, I miss 'em and I talk to them often.

I called my cousin Nikki the other day--just to check and see how she was doing.  She's a single mom--two teen-aged boys--and a brand new two year old daughter (why she started over after her boys are getting ready to go to college is beyond me--'cause once I get out of pampers--I ain't going back).

Her little two year old daughter is a whip--but she gets that from her mommy. Nikki was a little stinker--used to pull her pamper off when she was younger--run around the house naked! And she LOVED music--that thing would dance all day and night! Just loved to get her boogie on all the time!

And her daughter is just like her!  In church a few months ago--the choir was singing a real fast song and little momma jumped in the aisle and dropped it like it was hot!

And Nikki has always been a cusser--we all are actually. We learned how to cuss before we could spell our names!  Likewise, Nikki's daughter can cuss you under the table--at least that's what I've been told.  But I heard it for myself for the first time when we talked over the phone!

We were chatting when her older son Joshua, we call him Josh, was going to the store to pick up a bag of chips and a soda--just some snacks!  He probably wanted more to get out of the house and away from his baby sister than anything else.

Well, Josh was trying to sneak out while his momma was on the phone--he thought he was slick--but his two year old sister stopped him dead in his tracks.  As he tried to pull the door close--she ran toward the front of the house screaming "That's f)*(&ed up Josh!  Hey, that's f()*&ed up Josh!"

"Who is that?" I asked.

"Oh girl, that's the baby," Nikki responded, "let me go and take care of this--cause I ain't having it."

Nikki promptly put the phone down while walking to the other side of the house. I thought to myself, "Good, she is gonna stop that little girl from cussin'--cause that ain't cool!"

WRONG! Wrong--I heard Nikki tell Josh, "Hey, come back here! That is f()*ed up Josh--you don't do your sister like that!"

She made Josh wait on his sister to get dressed--and he was forced to drag her to the store with him.

When Nikki got back on the phone she was like "Yeah girl... I don't know what's wrong with that damn Josh---that was f(*&^ed up what he tried to do--leave his little sister--I ain't having that kind of stuff going on in my house!"

"I hear you girl," I told her, "that's why I ain't having but one baby--I don't want none of that f()*&ed up $hit in my house either!"