She arrived at my home in September of 2008 but her mommy didn’t yet know she was along for the ride – tiny –  inside the dark quiet growing place.  She would change her mommy’s world …. and mine, too.

I watched her enter the world – and our hearts – in June of 2009.  She was not too pleased at her Aunt’s administration of the first bath.

When mommy returned to work, we hung out.

I held her sleeping and awake and I fed her bottles and studied my school books holding her and spent my days off with this little person for her first 9 months.  I wondered how I’d accomplished anything with my own little ones many years before – but this time, it was ok to just sit and hold.   She was going to grow.

She doesn’t mind me holding her – actually likes it, reaches for me – and it’s never an interruption for me to pick her up.  She calls me Aunny – although it took until she was two for me to get a name.  Aunny without a “t” – my own name.

Her mommy has some life changes planned and if things come together — before too long, she will live very far away.

Contemplating this makes me quite sad.  I realize just how difficult (of course) it must have been when my husband and I took four children nearly 500 miles away from their grandparents many years ago.    (Who knew that they would end up next door to us for many years!)  My parents had done the same to my grandfather – who we’d lived with in northern Maine – and moved 500 miles south to a new state for a new start.

If all goes as hoped, she will be living near a grandma who can’t wait to get to know her.  Her Aunny and Uncle will be missing both her and her mommy, will have to look forward to video chats as poor substitutes for hugs,  and will be hoping for great things for their future!