I haven't held my new nephew Ryan yet and it's killing me. Luckily, we have webcams. I told my sister tonight she should just prop the him up in front of the computer and let me stare at him for a couple of hours. We're incapable of carrying on a conversation when he's in the viewfinder . . . totally distracting. At one point she asked why I was rocking back and forth - I hadn't even noticed that I was. Must be a natural instinct when I'm around babies. My sister has very dainty hands and they look gargantuan next to her tiny little newborn. Just looking at the miracle of his new life makes me feel awful tiny, too.
My oldest nephew - the one who came first and taught me everything I know about being the world's greatest aunt - turned 11 on Thursday and I totally missed it in all the excitement about his new baby brother.
Completely unforgivable. But when I called yesterday to apologize profusely he was like "It's cool, Julie. No worries." My nephew is pretty much the coolest kid you'll ever meet. Mature WAY beyond his 11 years. So sensitive that he apologizes for things he hasn't even done. He sends himself to his own room when he knows he's done wrong.
When he was little, he used to come sleep over at my house and we'd go to the dinosaur museum and the planetarium and pretend we were adventurers all weekend long.
Now he's a brainy 6th grader who read to me aloud from his favorite book when I visited last month, punctuated with giggles and asides like "Oh, this part's really funny. You'll love this."
He eats sushi with chopsticks. Wears glasses that make him look straight outta GQ. He's the star of his football and soccer teams and the family champ at Guitar Hero.
All of his little nieces and nephews - and brothers! - want to be just like him when they grow up. I do too.
He's just a few hours from the trauma of squeezing through a birth canal into the bright lights of this cruel world, and yet he's already having sweet dreams - probably of his Aunt Julie. Or maybe milk. Can't really compete with milk, can I?From what I hear, baby's great - if a bit scrawny (6.5 lbs, 20 inches - long and skinny like his parents!). And mom's apparently doing fine too - if she can get over the nausea of the drugs they pumped into her (drugs that made the guy come quickly and without much pain.) Way to go Liz! And baby Ryan, save some cuddles for your favorite aunt. I'll be there soon.
(P.S. thanks to Annie for the above pic and to Mom for sending the others! I feel like I didn't miss a thing!)
Sometime in the next 12 hours my sister will be in a pain more excruciating than I've ever experienced or plan to and I can't wait. What a crazy nine months she's had with an unexpected pregnancy at an inopportune time. But this baby is just what our family needs right now and he's going to get so much love and attention I'll be green with envy all the way out here in North Carolina. I've already instructed my sister to put the baby's face up to the webcam AS SOON AS HE'S BORN so I can get a jump on being his favorite aunt. Don't even wait to wipe all the birth slime off him. He needs to know how cool his Aunt Julie is the minute he touches down on planet Earth. But don't turn the webcam on too early because I DO NOT want to see his actual arrival. I saw a picture of that in my high school biology book and it still haunts me. Good luck, Liz. You're my hero!
My teeth are pretty nice, as you can see from this goofy-grin pic of me in Montreal.
They're strong and straight and people always ask me if I had braces as a kid. I didn't. But there were several years where I wore retainers and one, in particular, was a relic from the Dark Ages.
Our dentist was a bit zealous, in retrospect. He had all kinds of ideas about how to make our little mouths into perfect smiles - and I probably shouldn't complain too loudly, considering what I've just said about my excellent teeth. But when I was 10 or so, the dentist diagnosed me a "tongue thruster" and ordered up a plastic mouthpiece designed to train my tongue not to press my front teeth when I swallowed. It had four sharp wires sticking down at an angle, like an evil pitchfork aiming for my wayward tongue.
Seemed like an awfully dramatic approach to a pretty benign thing - but that's only because I remain unconvinced that I actually was a tongue thruster. Perhaps he was right and without the mouthpiece my top teeth would all be pointing out at a 45 degree angle today. We'll never know, because I wore that awful thing for 6 months.
I was thinking about that experience today as I sat in church and noticed two babies wearing scary-looking helmets. Initially I thought they'd both fallen on their heads and had some sort of injury that warranted head protection. No. Apparently it's now all-the-rage to put babies with oddly shaped heads in "cranial bands" for several months to reshape their noggins before the bones are fully formed.
One parent assured me it's more than just a cosmetic "I want a baby with a perfect head" thing. I guess if the head's not symmetrical, a kid can end up with overbite and jaw problems down the line.
Sure seems like a brutal way to fix the problem, though. These helmets (cranial bands) are custom made and supposedly don't hurt much. But they way about 1/4 of a pound - which seems like a lot for a kid that only weighs 15 pounds. And they have to wear the things at least 22 hours a day for 6-8 weeks.
Here's a photo of some none-too-thrilled babies with their new helmets.
That picture is from one of a ton of blogs I found when I searched for "cranial band" on Google images. I don't know how I feel about proud moms displaying their poor helmet-head babies to the whole world.
Just seems to me we're pretty obsessed with perfection if we're putting little babies through this kind of torture!
If you don't know my Grandpa Jack, I'm sorry for you because you've never heard the best belly laugh known to man.
I bet it was the first sound he made 84 years ago today when he slid from his mother's womb and was like, "Hot damn! I'm gonna play me some golf and woo a girl with my fancy dance moves and then I'm going to have the best-looking genius granddaughter the world has ever known!"
And the doctor probably had a stroke when he heard that deep, happy chortle like Santa Claus swallowed The Joker and climbed inside my grandpa's baby soft skin. That laugh can silence a room and turn the energy up at the same time.
Grandpa doesn't do it so much because something's funny, but because it's his joyful sound. Like when he teasingly asks the waitress for gooseberry pie and she says they actually do serve it. Or when we're all sitting around the dinner table, full and drowsy, and he gets to talking about the old days. When he's had a few drinks and really gets going, a little pig-snort sneaks in and makes him laugh so hard that he's gasping for air.
So it's too bad you don't know my Grandpa. But the good news is, you know me, and if we've ever watched a goofy film together you've heard the crazy cackle-laugh I can't stifle. I bet you were totally embarrassed by it. For that, you can thank Grandpa Jack.
And while you're at it, wish him a Happy 84th.
