SS meets Baby J.

Yesterday we visited Nana, and SS had the opportunity to meet her new cousin, Baby J.  Aunt C spent a week due to Nana's hospitalization, and to see her settled back home.  I was apprehensive about exposing SS to someone ill, especially someone on oxygen. SS is still very raw about my last surgery, and I was concerned the aftermath of the visit was going to be a major meltdown. But since SS will be home for three weeks on Christmas break, I decided to suck it up and deal with whatever may come.

I do not know if it was the novelty of meeting her cousin, but SS did not even comment on the oxygen, nor the portable defibrillator (has not said anything to us a day later).   Then it could also be that just seeing us sick upsets her.  It was the first time that SS held a baby, and I was praying that our klutzy child would not drop Baby J on her head. Another surprise was to see my husband hold an infant for the only second time in seventeen years (only because his sister placed her on his lap, that was funny).  A bigger surprise was that SS did not push Baby J of his arms and onto the floor. P thinks that SS would have been jealous had he been holding Cousin B or Cousin H. Maybe he is right, maybe she found Baby J harmless. Baby J left this morning to return home to her brother, sister and daddy.

Baby J is three months old and weighs fourteen pounds. That is one pound more than what SS weighed when we met her at sixteen months. Baby J is a really good baby, very alert, and sturdy. The girl can vigorously kick her legs, and managed to get a good grip on my hair. She is going to be able to hold her own with her sister and brother.

We dropped off the cousins gifts in a suitcase for Aunt C to take home. SS as usual left with something, two gifts from Aunt C, She is not supposed to open them until at least Christmas eve. It's going to be fun watching SS resist the temptation.

Now on to a traumatizing morning episode for SS, courtesy of her Baba. The challenge with Munch is to find a new place for him every morning in our small house. And he did not make an appearance on Thanksgiving, as tradition dictates. Don't know how we will manage next year.  Yesterday morning SS found Munch on a stocking and she thought it was hilarious. P decided to take it up a notch and proudly showed me last night where he placed Munch.

Are you serious? Hanging upside down from the downstairs ceiling vent? I was very skeptical, but P thought it was brilliant, whimsical, the stuff that elf magic is about. I should have known better, because my husband, from the day we met, has a habit of wrecking havoc, and leaving me to deal with the mess. I knew SS would find him, because she always looks up first when looking for Munch. I was packing her lunch when I realized that SS found him. She let out a wail, screamed MAMA!!!!, and the freak out began. "MAMAAAAAAAAAA, Munch tried to come in the house through the vent and got stuck! Mama, he hurt his foot Mama, now he won't be able to fly to the North Pole. He is hurt Mama!!!!! That was accompanied by tears, I wanted to to kick my husband for leaving me once again picking up his mess.  But, it was funny once I was able to calm SS down, and have her buy that Munch is a very skilled gymnast and circus performer, and that he was not hurt. Our daughter is going to need so much therapy.