now, that's a big baby

orson aurelius

i got to meet orson in person today. he was incredibly alert, or at least he was after his sister zelda decided he was ready to wake up by manually opening his eyes for him. he was polite and agreeable and engaging (excepting a rather violent refilling of his diaper while my hand was under his bottom). i'm so glad to know him.

you can see the other blurry pictures from my visit here. i wish they were crisper - i should have learned from hans's delivery what happens when i don't use the flash. but it was bright, and i didn't want to freak orson out.

toni and i talked about the difficulty of being around other babies after calvin and hans, respectively, died, and i was glad i went with my gut and asked kath to bring charlie over when we came home from the hospital. i think the longer i put it off, the harder it would have been to see other people's babies. as it is, the babies in my life bring me a lot of joy.

another baby who has brought me a lot of joy is emma, and she and her dad are coming to stay with us tonight. it's been two months since we saw her, when we went to stay with richard and candice on our escape trip. she's not really a baby now - she turned one a couple of weeks ago. she started out on the petite side, but she is now off the size charts for her age. i know what it's like to be the tallest girl in the class; i think emma will be one of us, and i hope she is the kind of girl who likes feeling tall and powerful. i never understood the girls who even in elementary school wanted to shrink down and be shorter than the boys.

we were just outside the room where emma was born when it happened, and i held her not 30 minutes later. it was justin's birthday. i wish hans were here to meet her; i looked forward to them growing up together. but i will always make sure his picture is around when she is, and someday, when she asks, i will tell her about hans.

emma was on the verge of walking when we saw her in march; i hear she's practically running now. i can't wait to see her.