Baby Days


Well, my daughter is still asking me every day about my impending baby due date, and my sister who is also having a baby soon. She should be due to go into labor this Wednesday as the newspaper is coming out, and A’Dell is awfully excited and anxious about meeting her new little cousin as well as her new little brother who should be born later this month.
“I’m so nervous! I’m going to have a new cousin this Wednesday! This Wednesday! This Wednesday! This is just nuts!” she shrieked from the backseat as we were on the way to church this weekend. “And I’m probably definitely going to have a baby brother in February too! Oh my gosh mom, I am just so nervous!”
I thought nervous was an interesting choice of words, as she seems more excited or ecstatic to me, but she insisted its nervousness. This morning, as she left for school, she added that she simply “might faint” when her new baby cousin is born. What a funny kid she is.
When I was young I had baby cousins who lived next door to us, so I was a baby sitter by the time I was 10. I also had 3 little siblings that started coming when I was only 4, so I guess I was surrounded by younger kids all my conscious life. I tend to think A’Dell has been raised in the same situation because she has lots of cousins, but truth be told, most of her cousins are her age and she’s definitely been the baby of our immediate family for a long time….7 years. So being the big sister/mother hen is going to take some getting used to. I saw that pretty clearly the last time a baby boy toddler came to our house and started crying; she just kind of stood there staring at him like a deer in the headlights. And it wasn’t long before he pulled her hair and swatted at her and of course she decided that meant “he hated her.”
She’s certainly been preparing for these babies though….She’s doing her homework experimenting and studying the diapers and bottles we have gotten for the baby. I’ve found a few of those packages opened, and enjoyed watching her as she discovered just how these new and interesting baby things feel and operate. I guess it’s only natural to wonder how it all works, but some sure were a funny sight! What a beautiful thing a mind is.