“Where’s your crazy mom?” I ask Olivia, still soaking in the ponds of perfection that are my nephew’s eyes.
“She was actually here for the delivery,” Olivia responds.
“Oh. Bummer.”
Olivia giggles. “She’s on a shopping spree for him now. Brian and I are thinking the guilt card might be just the ticket to avoid having to ever spend a cent on him.”
“Yeah, well, tell her to pick up a few things for me unless she wants Michael Brian’s favorite aunt schlepping him all over town looking like a homeless person.”
“Oh, hush now,” Mom scolds us. “That’s my grandbaby’s grandmother you’re talking about. His other grandmother.”
“The one who doesn’t really count,” I clarify, and Mom laughs into her fingertips in spite of herself.
“Your mom says he looks like a pianist with his long fingers,” Olivia tells me.
“Hmmmm,” I muse. “Sounds like you’ll have to take him to Mrs. Autry’s house soon to try out the piano she’s been trying to sell for the past fifteen years.”
We all laugh as Mom waves her hand through the air in protest. “Olivia will learn,” she says amiably. “She’ll learn there’s nothing a mother won’t do for her baby.”
“I learned that nine months ago,” Olivia says. “If I was willing to lunge to a toilet twenty times a day for him back then, I’m thinking everything from this point on will be gravy.”
“Yeah, good luck with that theory,” Dad says, and we all laugh, even teeny Michael Brian, and yes, he really does seem like he’s laughing! Oh … he’s spitting up.
“Puke rag, puke rag,” I say, and Mom rushes over with a cloth diaper. She dabs at his teeny, perfect little mouth, then scoops him into her arms despite the fact that he’s obviously never been happier in his life than he was in my arms.
“No fair snatching him!” I whine.
“He needs his grandma,” Mom says, gazing into the same ponds that just bathed me in warm, velvety wonderfulness.
“It’ll be feeding time soon,” Brian says, glancing at his watch.
“Ouch, Grandma,” Dad teases Mom. “That’s one area where you won’t come in very handy.”
Michael Brian suddenly sneezes, and we all lean in to soak up the moment in appropriate awe.
“Isn’t he the most amazing baby ever?” Olivia says, and we gush in agreement.
Yes, we’re definitely unanimous: he is the most amazing baby ever.
Glad we got that cleared up.
Nicole Renee Photography
About the Author
Christine Hurley Deriso is an award-winning author of the young adult novel Then I Met My Sister and three middle grade novels. She has also contributed to Ladies’ Home Journal, Parents, and other national magazines. Visit her at christinehurleyderiso.com.
Thirty Sunsets Page 16