Nephew!

I have been a parent for over 4 years now. While I love the experience and enjoy being a mommy, I have yet to experience the pleasure of being an aunt. I have been looking forward to that for a while.

Being an aunt is just different than being a mom. You have a little more freedom to spoil the kids, because then you get to send them home for someone else to deal with. And believe me there is a lot of spoiling that I need to do. My son has been the only grandchild in both mine and Matt's families for 4 years now. He has had plenty of spoiling. It's our turn now.

We found out in the fall that Matt's sister was expecting her first baby. We've been so excited and filled with anticipation. Then at Christmas, my sister surprised us all with a pregnancy announcement of her own. So we find that we're having two nephews due a month apart. Talk about plenty to spoil!

Yesterday at 10:00PM (around then, I can't remember exactly, maybe 10:04PM) my first nephew was born. (Son of Matt's sister, C, and her husband, L)

May I introduce to you, Patrick Charles.

He weighed in at a mere 8 lbs 5 oz and 21 inches long. He has a head full of thick dark hair and has the softest skin I've ever felt.

As you can tell from the picture, Patrick is spending some time in the Special Care nursery. He's had a start eerily similar to our Zachariah. He was due on the same day of the month (just a different month) as Zachariah, we induced on the same day (different month) as Zachariah, got shipped off to the Special Care nursery like Zachariah, and is in the next spot over in the same hospital as Zachariah was. Strange. He seems to have the same sort of infection that's preventing him from being at his mommy and daddy's side.

It was so strange walking into her hospital room with no baby there. But it seemed familiar, it happened to me 4 years ago. As I walked through the same hallways with my brother in law, I was a little spooked at the deja vu-ness of the whole situation. Seeing him in that little bed under the warmest was just too familiar. Our Zachariah spent a week in that same nursery under the same warmers.

But we know that Zachariah came home after a week. He grew up big and strong, and he is a healthy (really healthy) 4 year old boy now. I have every reason to expect that Patrick will be the same.

And I have a little experience from the mother's point of view. Our breastfeeding relationship didn't start well. There are things I would change if I could go back and do that. So I pass that knowledge and wisdom along to my sister-in-law in hopes of preventing her the same problems.

Through all these thoughts and feelings, I'm so excited to meet my new little nephew. I'm thrilled to be an aunt, and I can't wait to get to know Patrick more and more each time I see him.