It's So Easy! I Can Show You!
Dear Little Vivian,
Well, welcome to this world. You are now a human. A daughter. A sister.
A sister!
I know some things about that.
No worries. It's easy.
This weekend, when you were born, I was visiting Auntie Stephanie. She is going to have a baby. She feels good for awhile. Then sick. Good again. Gross. Good. Gross.
Kind of like that.
It's not new to me, your mom does the same, exact, thing. When your mom is pregnant she doesn't like the cold or the smell of bacon.
(I found these out the hard way.)
Being a sister means that you drive 11 hours to cheer up one sister, while the other one is 11 hours the other way having a baby without you. Meanwhile, yet another sister is across the ocean having multiple sick and tired days!
So Vivian this is what you do. You drive the 11 hours to the desert for one sister. Go to dinner with new friends, take her shopping for pregnancy clothes, make her laugh, buy her doughnuts and love her children as if they are your own.
(Watch their Shirley Temple dances and clap and laugh and think that they are the most adorable little ones on earth.)
That part is NOT hard.
Then, when she is sufficiently charged, you take that car (or your Dad's, in our case) and drive the other 11 hours (stop at the Grand Canyon if you wish) to be at your other sister's bed and hug and kiss and love the new baby that came while you are gone.
That part is NOT hard either.
(You were that baby last night. You are a cutie! Keep up the good work!)
As for that sister across the ocean...just pray for her.
That part is just a little hard.
Because, although you've never been sick with a baby growing inside of you, nor experienced your first home birth and subsequent hard labor, you have gone on a mission.
So you know, it's rough out there.
You are a lucky girl Vivian May! 4 sisters already!
And one day, after awhile, they will be 4 of your loveliest friends.
Friends you would drive across deserts,
endure watching childbirth,
and fly across oceans
just to be in their company.
See? Easy.
Love,
Auntie Courtney