On June 29, 2007, I became a great-aunt. My niece Holly had a son - JayShawn Lawrence Ward. He's so cute. Though she is 19 and a single mom, my niece is over the moon about her son. Everything that would have freaked me out only seems to add to her happiness. Single mom? So what. Baby daddy is a jerk? That's fine, because she gets the baby all to herself!Holly has been a champ about many things since the baby arrived. This is a picture of JayShawn and Holly taking a nap. Is there any purer love to be had?
I expected my niece to freak out eventually. Sure, newborns are pretty cute. It's the next best thing to carry around a bag of flour. Newborns can be toted around in their little car seats wherever you might want to go - the mall, restaurants, Target - but then they wake up. They teethe. They develop personalities. They go through growth spurts. They fuss. They do all of the things that I imagined any offspring of mine would do should I have been unlucky enough to conceive - head spinning around while projectile vomiting, for example.
But if my great-nephew done these things, it doesn't seem to rattle my niece. He is a mellow baby, according to reports from my niece and my mom. He doesn't scream. He's not shy. He loves meeting new people. He eats well. He has big brown eyes. He doesn't spit nails. I'll finally get to meet the little guy over New Year's. And I can't wait to meet JayShawn and know him.
Since he lives in Alabama, I won't get to see all of his firsts: first word, first steps, and maybe even the first time a policeman brings him home for scurrying away too far on his Big Wheel. Somehow, I need to find a way to make sure he knows that I love him every day, even though I'm far away.
I have to make a GREAT first impression when I meet the baby, so he won't mind that I carry him around all weekend long. And perhaps months later, he'll throw down his toys and say, "I want Aunt Amy to babysit me! No one else!"
Somewhere in a long talk with my niece, we discussed what it is like to be a mommy. My niece told me that being a mom is one of the happiest feelings in the world. There is nothing else like it. Everything else pales in comparison. She even encouraged me to have a baby.
Me? I've long known I would accidentally leave the car seat and baby on top of the car while I'm driving down the highway. My own mom has snickered at the idea of me having a baby.
And then there is that one freaky dream I had eight years ago. Ross and I take our spawn to Target for the obligatory family pictures that relatives demand. We all wear versions of the same outfit to make the picture extra snarky. The 8x10's turn out great except for one thing: Ross, little baby Cyclops with his one big brown eye, and I certainly make an interesting-looking family.
The mommy gene seems to have skipped me entirely. I don't mind mommying grown-ups, cats, dogs, and other people's offspring for limited periods of time. But there is something in my DNA that apparently said, "Yeah, we better stop production on this line. We've had some major issues with this. Remember the crazy heart thing? And this one is even allergic to most common dental anesthetics. Do I even have to ask for a raise of hands on this one to get a go/no-go?" And hence my mommying gene won't ever wake up.
I'm really proud of my niece for being such a good mommy.
