I'm a Grandpa!

First of all, allow me to introduce you all to my first grandchild, Nora Paige. Born at 1:43 PM, January 29, 2010. 7 lbs 9oz, 21 inches long. With lot's of dark hair. (Click on smaller photos to enlarge.)

That's her at about three hours old, wearing a cap to keep warm.

Good thing she had a cap because she was born on a very cold day. The temperature was in the upper teens on this eve of the first full moon of the year. Her mother was also born during a full moon. I'm no loony mystic, but I do know many veteran nurses who swear there are more baby's born during full moons.

I doubt it's statistically supported, I'm only saying that Nora and her Mom were born during a full moon, and when I stepped outside the building and saw that bright orb in the cold, clear sky, I remembered the night Em was born over twenty-five years ago.
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Julie and I consider it one of the most bonding times of our lives. We were living in Iowa at the time so neither of our parents were present in the hospital. We kept them posted, of course, and they came out to visit immediately, but the day of the birth itself was pretty much the two of us with the help of the fine hospital staff. Keith and Em chose to do the same in their experience yesterday. The difference is, nowadays, there are cell phones and Facebook to keep all the family members up to the minute. It was great.

We all kept busy doing our normal routine, and passing progress reports along just as if we had been in a waiting room. Then after Nora was born, and Keith and Em had a few hours with their baby as a new family, they called us and we rushed up to see Nora--and Em and Keith, too... but mostly Nora. Keith's parents and brother and sister-in-law joined us a few minutes later. It was a wonderful gathering. Lots of pictures; lots of video; lots of Facebook photoalbums in the making. (If you happen to know them, you can see many more pictures there.) That's Julie to the right and I don't know who that guy in the beard is.

I hope you don't mind me rambling on in this post. The truth is, I don't "facebook" and photos display better on a blog when they are wrapped in text, so I'm just providing text. You don't have to read it.

Back when Emily was born, I did not have a lap-top.(No one I knew had any form of a personal computer back then.) But it will probably not surprise you that I had a journal and wrote on-the-spot, real-time, anecdotal reports of what was happening through the day.

Don't worry, I was also doing my main job as Julie's Lamaze coach. I was a very attentive father-to-be, but even during labor there are long periods of "down time," and I passed mine writing in the journal (sort of like I found myself doing yesterday as I was waiting for the phone call as a grandpa-to-be).

[That's me getting misty as I hold Nora for the first time.]

And I will say that my children have enjoyed reading that journal through the years. In fact, Emily brought it home from their house just a couple weeks ago. I didn't know she had it, but she and Keith wanted to read it to get an idea of what was in store. So I'm glad I had that journal on hand when Emily was born.

You may recall I told you about Nora coming several months ago, and since then it's been a joy to watch her grow. I can see Nora's "born" face in this ultrasound. It was fun watching her mommy grow, too.

(She's always been a slender girl, and not much changed over the nine months. Her tummy looked sort of like a cocoon on a stick.)

Keith has been working hard, too. He's been painting from the basement to the upstairs nursery, which by the way is adorable. The cradle that Em bought at an antique sale (and stored in our garage for two years) is now set up in the little nook off their living room, and there's a portable crib in their bedroom. they are ready to go!

Aunt Kim, there at the left, came home from college in Chicago Thursday night just in time to see her new niece the next day. We have a picture of Kim and Em holding their little sister Natalie back in 1995. It looks very much like this snapshot.

Speaking of Natalie, here she is with Nora. She is fourteen, and just after this picture was taken she had to leave to go play in a varsity girls basketball game after which she was a cheerleader during the boys varsity game. Keith and his brothers and sisters (Nora's other aunts and uncle) are good athletes, and Em and Kim and Natalie all play volleyball. (In fact, they all wore the same uniform in high school.) I like that Aunt Natalie is an athlete and a cheerleader and a piano player, and judging by Nora's graceful fingers, she may follow in her footsteps.

So there you have it. There's my little girl Emily holding her little girl Nora. It's been just two and a half years since she was getting dressed for her wedding day and she and her husband took those wonderful pictures along the shore of Lake Michigan.
I love milestone days like weddings, but there's nothing more beautiful than a new mom.

Keith and Em are off to a great start as parents. They know what commitment is beginning with each other. (They were high school sweethearts who continued dating as they went to college to become teachers.)

They know that Nora's security through the years will come not from being adored and doted on, not from being the center of a child-centered home, but from being loved and nurtured by the two parents whose love made the home in the first place. And if God grants Nora brothers and sisters, they will know the same love and security.

Changing the subject slightly to previous posts: For over a year, I have been writing about some land and the home my own childhood family settled back in the late Sixties and Seventies. That project is pretty much done. I do have an epilogue to write for those chapters, but that will be on hold for a while. By the way, it may seem like I write mostly about things long past, but if you know my current life, you will see that those "old stories" tie directly to the present. For instance, back in 2007 when I was writing about my own parents' first year of marriage in Bringing Home the Duncan Phyfe, those chapters were unfolding during my daughter's first year of marriage. There was a reason for that. I wanted Em to read it and to know that the life she and Keith had begun would not be perfect, but their experiences would draw them close and make the "for better or worse" part of their vows a stronger and stronger knot through time. Likewise, in Unsettled, when I write of my brother Jimmy being the one still at home when his siblings moved on, I am drawing parallels to my own Natalie, who is our caboose. In the concluding chapters of Unsettled, I have hinted at those intangible elements that gradually draw young people from the home they know to the home they hope to build--not from the ground up as my Dad did-- but from hand to hand and heart to heart as my parents also did, and as Julie and I and Keith's parents have tried to do for our children, and as Keith and Em will do for theirs.
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Enjoy the photos and links. It may be a while before I resume writing, but I will resume in time. (I know because I've tried to quit before.)