what it's like to be an Aunt

It is kind of like being a grandma, except I am not as disapproving and therefore, hopefully not as annoying. I got to swaddle, cuddle and help out and then I got to go home. I didn't have to stay up all night, wait for my milk come in, wonder why this thing was pooping so much, and if it was growing and worrying if it was ever going to develop, since all it ever did was sleep. Audrey is stuck doing all of that. And she is doing a great job. That is what you need to hear those first few days: you are doing a great job, you are a wonderful and beautiful mother and your babies love you. Since my mom is staying with her she is probably hearing something like "ay gato, no, you need to get rid of these cats. !Vete, cabron!"

The first few days my mom stayed with me, she almost dropped the car seat Annabelle was in when we went to Target. I say almost, because she recovered by falling herself, rather than drop the baby. Then she cried about it all the way home. I wasn't even upset, those dang car seats are so cumbersome. She also constantly nagged me about the fact that I didn't want anyone to rock Annabelle to sleep. And she stood in front of Annabelle's crib and held the pacifier in her mouth so she could suck it and not drop it and start crying. She showed me how to bathe a baby and brought me canteloupe and cranberry juice when I was nursing and made us carne guisada sin cominos because her mother told her that cominos make your baby collicky. One day a huge bouquet came to the house. We had been getting so many, that they had almost become passe. But this one wasn't for me, it was for her, from Hyphen.

I have never loved her so much. When she left, I cried, but then Hyphen wisely suggested we go to Target. That cheered me right up. Always does.