Hard To Believe This Baby Is Having A Baby

From the day she was born, she was the easiest person to get along with. Even before she was born, she was easy. On the day she was born, my sister-in-law Karen sat in the hospital room with me and couldn't believe that I was not in any pain. Each time I had a contraction Karen grabbed her stomach and rocked back in forth in agony while I, with my big 9-and-a-half-month belly, sat there laughing at Karen's antics.




She came into the world with wide-open eyes and hair so long it touched her shoulders in the back. It didn't take long for a lop-sided grin to take over her face. She charmed everyone, most of all me and her older sister Jenny, who had begged for a sister for so long.

Even at 14 months she had a style all her own. She loved purses and shoes. But she wouldn't keep her shoes on and insisted on wearing her purse across her chest like a swashbuckler's sword. I would get her dressed only to have her show up barefoot 5 minutes later when I was ready to go out the door. "Where... are... your... shoooooes?" I would ask, irritation starting to show. "I KNOW!" she would proudly exclaim and run to her bed to show me all her shoes lined up in a row.

She loved being outside and quickly took control of any game paraphnelia she could get hold of. The bigger kids in the neighborhood would try getting her out of the game, but she was braver than they and usually carried around parts and pieces of whatever game was being played. Her grin kept her from getting creamed on more than one occasion.

I have a tape recording of the day she got all dolled up in her new 'rower skates' as she called them. In the recording she asks "Where's Daddy?" To which I reply, "Why? Do you want to show him your roller skates?" Her reply?

"No, I want to show him ME!"

When you're hitting sixty like I am, you often ask yourself "where in the world have the years gone?

Now that little girl with the lop-sided grin is due to have a baby of her own in a couple of weeks. She's hardly gained any weight while her husband Mike proudly announced to all the baby shower participants that he's put on 15 pounds!

I plan to be there for the birth and hope with all my heart her son comes into this world with all the charm and ease that she did. With a husband like Mike, she'll probably be laughing as he grabs his stomach and rocks back and forth, like Karen so long ago.

I'll be laughing too, but I'm sure she'll forgive me if there are a few tears mixed in. I'll try to keep her mind busy with the weather or books, but all the time I'll be thinking "Man, where did all those years go?"