I wrote a little about Josh Cotter and his excellent graphic novel Skyscrapers of the Midwest in an earlier post, and he pops up on this website again as the fourth installment in my themed sketchbook:

Josh deserves credit for being the first artist to put my teeny forelimbs to comedic effect, filling each fist with a poor, unfortunate cow.  Where he got the idea to do that I don’t know, but it sure is funny.  Josh also employs a bit of artistic license in depicting how my legs might’ve looked, for in the source photo my lower half is swaddled beneath blankets.  He was kind enough to cover my naughty bits with a onesie, which brings to mind another true story about my birth.

By the time my mother was pregnant with me, our family was already rife with boys.  My mother had one sibling, a brother.  My mother’s firstborn was a boy—as were both of the children born to my father’s sister—so the family was ready for a change.  Alas it was not to be, but so much was the hope that I was brought home from the hospital in a pink jumper, it apparently being the only clothes anyone had on hand (this being the era when you weren’t given an option of learning the gender of a child before its birth).  I imagine the strangers my mother encountered on her way to the car, each of them seeing my infant face and believing it belonged to a baby girl.  Somehow that makes things worse, doesn’t it?

I don’t recall what my name would’ve been had things gone as planned.  Mom, if you’re reading this (and I know you are), please be so kind as to dispel the mystery.

(Addendum: Mom emailed to say, “Couldn’t remember at first, but as I perused your pink baby book it came back to me:  Susanne.  After Aunt Sue, of course.”  Mystery dispelled.  Thanks, Mom.)