38 pounds of pure kinetic energy

My niece is really cool.
She's at that fun age where she thinks that we're all pretty cool too (though she can still be a bit of a snot at times).  But she's a really cool kid.

Lots of energy, endless curiosity, smart as a whip and funny as hell.  And she's got a whole bunch of grown ups looking out for her and making sure she's ok and waiting to teach her stuff.

Really great kid.

Sometimes I look at her and I wonder if I've made the right choice by deciding not to have any myself.  Enough so that I've actually considered it recently (even managed to talk myself into it about six months ago, but life happened and things changed).

But there are days when I look at my sister, my brother-in-law, my folks...

I think I'm probably better off just being the crazy uncle who shows up with toys, spoils the hell out of the kid, and leaves before it's time to clean up the mess...  I don't have that kind of energy.  It takes between three and five adults to keep up with that munchkin, and she runs us all ragged.