First time holding him.
So, today was Trey's fifth birthday. So much has happened in the last five years, it's crazy to think about it. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. I'd spent the whole previous night in the hospital waiting room, going for coffee and Red Bull runs with my brother. I went home around 8am to catch some sleep, and about an hour or two later, my brother called and told me to come back to the hospital. And eventually, from the waiting room, I saw my brother walking down the hallway with a doctor, who was pushing a little plastic incubator/isolette thing. We all crowded around it and I remember looking at this tiny baby with squinty eyes. Newborns kind of all look alike...I feel like it takes a day or two for their features to settle in or something. But regardless, I fell in love hard-core. Instinctively, I felt this need to protect. Protect this little being I had known for less than five minutes. I've always felt maternal toward kids, but this feeling was different. This was almost animalistic instinct. And just like that, I was an aunt. I was an aunt. It was so odd to think about, me being an aunt at 26. Now, five years later, it's odd to think I am the only aunt in the family now.
The next day, at work, I got a phone call from UNC, telling me I was off the wait list and did I want to come there, and of course I said yes. After work I went next door to the hospital and held my nephew for the first time, telling him I would make him a little Tar Heel. Holding him was....a turning point for me. I know it sounds cheesy and trite, but it's true. I know babies can't see/focus at first, but believe me when I tell you this little kid actually looked like he was observing us all and taking us in. He was so small - 6lb, 11oz and 20.5 inches long - and he fit into the crook of my arm perfectly.
As the months went by, before I left for North Carolina, I actually got to take care of my nephew a lot. My brother and his girlfriend still went out with their friends a lot and I'd have my nephew several times a week, sometimes overnight on the weekends. He slept in his bassinet basket on the floor next to my bed, and I'd wake up at night just to watch him sleep, or to rest my hand on his chest to make sure he was still breathing. I'd wake up and feed him when he cried. He would laugh out loud in his sleep, I swear to G-d. I learned what songs soothed him and the perfect angle at which to feed him, to minimize the spit up that would happen. To this day, he still falls asleep when I play "Baby Mine" on my iPod, and still loves Sheryl Crow's version of "Sweet Child O'Mine." When he was a baby and I'd be driving in my Jeep, if he would fuss, I'd put that song on and sing along, and he'd quiet down. It was the funniest thing.
But I never could have imagined the extent to which he'd change our lives. Do we ever, with children?
And now, five years later, I'm out of North Carolina, back in New York, at Columbia, and Trey is getting ready to start kindergarten in the fall. He named me Aunt JJ (he couldn't say "Jaime", so he said "JJ"), he has a way with animals, and he can be wise beyond his years sometimes. When my brother told the family he and his girlfriend were expecting, my family was upset, to be honest. But sometimes things have a way of working out for the best. This certainly did, and I wouldn't change a thing.
In other news, in two weeks, my classes will be over. And my first year will be done. I remember when I got in, my friend Natalie (also an MFAer, in fiction) joked that MFA stands for More F*cking Around. Yeah, well, this year was no joke. And this semester in particular. Definitely not a slacker time. So I like to think of MFA as something else: MotherF*cking Awesome. As in, that's what I'll be when I snag my book deal.
No comments:
Post a Comment