My friend has a daughter and from the second she could speak she called me Costello. I think it's because her Dad used to say Sue Costello is coming over and she only heard Costello. Anyway, she is the cutest kid on earth and we have had a special connection since she was born. I've babysat her many times but the most profound time was Sept 12th 2001, it was her first day of school and the day after Sept 11th. I went to the upper east side armed with all my sorrow knowing full well that I would have to hide it when I saw her. It was odd, i lived downtown at the time and the Upper East side seemed much less affected. I walked into the apartment and out she came with her blue dress and blue bow yelling ";Costello's here!" She was so cute i forgot my sorrow for a second. She was so unaffected. For an hour or so we played and then i gave her her sippy cup and she sat in the chair and I on the couch. I picked up the New York Times and there was a list of all the missing people and my heart sunk. She was not even looking at me and at that moment she turned and said Costello are you ok? I means she was 2.   Then when it was time to leave she hugged me for a good five minutes. Since then we have had many more moments like that. There was the time when she was afraid to take her turtleneck off because her Dad had gotten it stuck on her head one day and now she was shell shocked. I told her not ot worry that if it got stuck Costello would run in the kitchen and get the scissors and cut it off. Through her tears she asked, "Costello do big girls cry?"And then there was the time when we were walking to get the mail in Nantucket and a helicopter flew over head and scared her and i told her that Costello would always protect her. And the time we were sitting at the dining room table and i said some word and she picked right up on it and asked me what it meant. I can't remember the word but it was one of those words that you really can't describe but i tried and half way through she said "its too confusing!" While circling her fingers around her ears. A year later i was filming Last Comic Standing and they interviewed her, they asked her if she thought Costello was funny and she said "no" and everyone laughed. A few minutes later she was in the kitchen crying hysterically to her Mom, she felt bad because she didn't mean that i wasn't funny but she wanted to say that i was pretty and she didn't think i could be both. HMMMMMMMMMMM she was three at the time. Did someone teach her that, or was she born with it?   It's too confusing.