Push Day Countdown!

It's hard to believe that anyone my age is adult enough to have a baby of their very own to squish.  To sixteen-year-old me, thirty sounded terribly serious and worthy of bearing the responsibilities of child-rearing.  Now I realize that it feels almost as clueless as sixteen, with the major difference being the migration of hair or dimples into all the wrong territories.  

Age alone doesn't adequately prepare or qualify you for parenthood.  You earn your Mommyscout badge by practicing your bottle feeding/butt-wiping skills on other people's healthy children, perhaps as a helper in the church nursery or as a babysitter when an older cousin just needs a little Olive Garden in her life (and goodness knows why, because you and I know it's just dressed-up Chef Boyardee).

All of that said, I can't think of anyone better qualified to take charge of a tiny human being than my sister, Ava's Aunt "Gigi".  She's earned a whole vest-full of said badges.  I can hardly wrap my head around the fact that my BABY sister is toeing the jumping-off point of delivery as we speak.  This is the kid I remember bouncing around her lead-painted crib in our shared bedroom twenty five years ago.  

I want you all to send your happiest thoughts and hopeful prayers her way right now as she prepares for those Braxton-Hicks to convince her it's REALLY time and oh crap, she needs an epidural, like, yesterday!

Angela, Ben, I can't wait to meet your precious Juliana Adel, and for her, Jazmin, and Ava to start destroying their grandparents' yard together!  It's so extra special to me that we will both have girls within the same year, and they'll grow up running around together, your tall baby and my short baby, lookin' every bit like the Bert and Ernie of Gourdneck, Arkansas. 

Now hurry up and have your baby on my birthday!  It would be the happiest ginger aunt in the world....