Well, the cat's out of the bag. I'm going to be a grandmother again. It's the best news unless your new grandbaby is about 4.5 hours away because I love the smell of a newborn baby. 
 
It was a bit of a shock, I must say, because her firstborn will be 12 years old by the time the new baby is born. I'm very excited and a little apprehensive, as we all are at these times.
 
My daughter, Claire, was my first born. Her birthday is July 16. It was a Saturday night, and on Sunday was the annual Meidinger picnic in Wishek. Naturally, the doctor said I couldn't go. I was bummed as it was the first grandchild in our family. The first words out of the nurse's mouth as Claire arrived in the world were, "what a beautiful baby." She was, she is. 
 
As she grew out of the alien stage (everyone knows newborns look like aliens), not Claire, she looked like a Precious Moments doll. The compliments came so often that she just learned to say, "I know." My heart longs to go back to those days and experience them again.
 
I talked and sang to this little girl and took her everywhere. I sang the Gilbert O'Sullivan song, "Clair, the moment I met you, I swear. I felt as if something, somewhere, had happened to me which I couldn't see," etc. 
 
And this little ditty, "Oh little Claire, you're so sweet, you got teeny tiny hands and teeny tiny feet." That original poem was about hors d'oeuvres.
 
Claire didn't like to travel like her brother, so she stayed with friends or neighbors or at our home on weekends. Of course, as she grew into those teenage years, we ran into a bit of trouble here and there. Some days I didn't want to answer the phone for fear it was the principal at the high school or, worse yet, the truancy officer. 
 
Pretty soon, she was out of college, married, and had a child of her own. It was only then that I saw the products of her upbringing. She started baking cakes and decorating them for weddings and birthdays. WOW. Fondant characters depicting things like the Beatles' Yellow Submarine album cover or basketfuls of veggies for her farmer market mother. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.
 
The parties she threw for her daughter were the most amazing. Rooms full of hand-made decorations based on the current trends – think Frozen and Dora. 
 
I have already started crocheting baby things in neutral colors. I know the baby daddy wants it to be a boy while everyone thinks it's a girl. I don't care. I want to be able to smell that baby and spoil that baby because the rest of those grandchildren didn't stay children very long. The other five grandchildren range in age from seven to 21. Where does that time go?
 
When you are in the thick of raising your children, and someone says, "Oh, cherish these moments; you will miss them when they are gone." 
 
And, you are thinking, "No way, get me out of here. I have not been in the bathroom alone or had a hot meal since the baby came."
 
Then the day comes when the nearly unbearable pain in your heart makes you realize just how precious those moments were, and you dig out those photo albums and wish you had written on the back of them like those same people said you should because you can't always remember when and where the photo was taken, and then you sigh, and think to yourself, "this is the way." 
 
So here's to cherishing every moment of every day and happy birthday to my firstborn.