baby tyrant

my sister is home alone with baby all week. my brother-in-law had a small training he had to go to, and this is really the first time maggie and her mom have been all alone together. for my sister, this is pretty nerve-wracking. add to that the fact that baby got pink eye this week and my sister has to apply eye ointment four times a day plus give her oral medication, and my sister is a teensy, tiny bit freaked out. they are doing fine, but i can see how this could be a long week for the both of them.

i got to talk to her for a while on the phone tonight, in between feedings. maggie slept most of the time, but even while she sleeps she makes these tiny baby noises. mostly cute little grunts and sighs, some snorting. honestly, she sounds an awful lot like a baby bulldog. my sister and i grew up with a bulldog (cuddles) that we adored, and when she told me that maggie is getting so plump that she has to clean her folds i said, "hey! like cuddles!" because you know, with bulldogs you have to clean their face folds to make sure they don't get real goopy. then we started comparing baby maggie to baby cuddles and realized except for the fact that my sister breast-feeds maggie, they are essentially the same creature. they both eat a lot, they both sleep a lot, they both grunt and sigh and wiggle around all the time, and they both are chubby little tyrants. delightful.

i get a kick out of my sister saying to maggie, "do something cute for auntie amanda." i like being the auntie. my favorite aunt was my auntie peggy, and there's something to be said for getting a chance to be as cool as she was. it makes me both a bit homesick and extremely happy. it makes me miss tiernan and jude too. babies are amazing, but the older kids get, and the more they get to show you who they really are, the more remarkable they get. if you stop and think about it too hard you either get entirely too sentimental or overwhelmed. what surprises me most about the whole thing is that i thought once my sister and friends started having kids, i'd start to really feel the bio-clock tick tocking away. if anything, the opposite is true. i love my niece and nephews, but i love them so much i can hardly think of introducing another baby to the group. i'm so interested and enamored of them that having my own babies seems like something far, far off.

i don't think i'll get to actually see any of my people next month like i'd originally planned. i have this big week-long training i have to do at the start of the month, and with the new promotion the whole work situation has changed. not in a bad way, but it's different now. i'm a bit more invested in them, they're a bit more invested in me, and the training is going to take a lot of time and energy. i'm still hoping to get away at least for a long weekend, hopefully to texas, but i have to work all that out with my manager who is out until the end of this week. in short, things are now up in limbo and i'm trying hard to figure it all out. three months on my own seemed like a real long time a few weeks ago, but now the thought of having to do another month on my own doesn't seem so daunting. i might be adjusting.

ooh, and to make myself feel better after my car got jacked i ordered a pair of these black wood ring earrings. i keep trying not to buy pretty earrings in my size (7/16th) because then i feel guilty when i stretch to a bigger size, but why have big lobes without something pretty to put in them? especially something this ridiculously pretty and yet totally modern. i like the big curves of them, and i don't have any dangles to wear right now. that's how i'm justifying the expense...