Thursday was the Christmas program at preschool. This is the last program I’ll ever attend as a mom there. My baby, Julia, will be a kindergartener next year, and preschool will be over. All ten of them went to this school. Our first year was in 1982, and we’ve had a child there pretty much every year since. I was surprised I’m not sad, and relieved that I'm not. I always wondered how it would feel when it came to that LAAAST ONNNE. It feels good, perfect, happy, right.
Last summer I sat on a bench with a young friend, watching Julia swimming with her dad. I told her Julia had been born shortly after our 25th wedding anniversary, and I was glad I hadn’t known about her ahead—how big our family was destined to become--because I could not have waited TWENTY-FIVE years for this one. She is the maraschino cherry on top of a giant sundae of family.
Being an aunt isn’t always easy on her. She hates sharing her mom. She doesn’t like it when t.c. overpowers her, which he’s doing less and less as he gets older, but for a while it was a regular thing. I thought about this and realized if I had a nephew who outweighed me and was perfectly willing to take me to the ground to get his way, I probably wouldn’t be happy to see him all the time either. Especially if he seemed to have a special claim to my mother’s heart.
So this brings us to b.g. whom we babysit occasionally. He comes for the whole day and it’s just lovely. We do nothing but baby all day. Well, Julia is less than thrilled. As I told some friends, we had b.g here today and Julia admits she doesn't like him. "He smells bad." This is untrue. He smells like baby wash and milk and gorgeous-ness. She crawls around on my person like some kind of feline while I'm trying to feed her nephew a bottle....
The night before he came, she asked me, “Do you love b.g. more than you love me?” Sigh. That would not be possible. I laughed and asked her who she loved the most? Me or Grandma? Well, she pondered on that and said she couldn’t decide. “I actually love you and all my grandmas.” Well, yeah. It’s kind of like that. More isn’t how it works, and aren’t we ever glad. Love, Val
away she goes
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