A boy child

It's a boy!

Not that a girl would have been unwelcome, you understand. A healthy and happy baby of either type is what counts.

Nicholas Michael was born Sept. 29, 2012, at 7:40 a.m. He weighed in at 8 lbs., 9 oz.

His joyful parents are Melissa and Chris. Melissa is my great niece, my brother's son's beautiful daughter. Melissa says Nicholas is "an angel" and that she and Chris couldn't be happier.

I guess my partiality towards boy babies -- if I have one -- comes from the lack of them on the other side of my family, my mother's side.

My maternal grandmother had one son, my Uncle Joe, my mother's brother. That was it for his generation. All of his siblings were girls.

When my mother's sisters and brother got married, their generation produced a slew of girls and one boy -- me.

A lot of males showed up at family gatherings, but most were in-laws. There were only two males who could trace their roots back to my grandmother, and they were my Uncle Joe and me.

Trust me when I say Uncle Joe and I were pampered, especially by my grandmother. We were a rarity.

Times have changed. Those who did the pampering are long gone now, and so is much of the sexism that focused the lion's share of attention on males, whether on my mother's side of the family or in the world at large.

I'm 70 now, so mark it up to my being an old coot, but I remember my long run as the only male in my generation on my mother's side as fun while it lasted. It never gave me all that much of an edge when I was a kid, but every little bit seemed to count.

I'll quickly add that I am glad times have changed. My nieces and great-nieces and great-great-nieces deserve every opportunity they'll get and, in my biased opinion, then some. As do their brothers. Back in the day, the world, like grading on a curve, was not fair. But it's getting fairer, step by step.

In passing, I'll mention that Melissa and Chris's decision to pick "Michael" for the new baby's middle name made Michael, the new grandfather, beam even more than he might have otherwise. We're going to have to reel him back down to earth sometime soon. He's really flying high.

So, as I've already said privately, congratulations to new parents Melissa and Chris and to proud grandparents Michael and Becky.

And welcome to the family, Nicholas Michael. I wonder how much more the world will change by the time you grow up.