Family Circle

So my brother and sister in law are the proud parents of a beautiful, amazing baby girl who is smart and gifted and actually opened for Conan the other night. You should have seen her. She rocked it. Their precious bundle is about 4 months younger than our itty bitty baby. And, my brother and I have had so much fun talking babies and pregnancies and all things about our lives to come being parents.

Honestly, Tam, as I call him in my Mam voice, is good people. Instead of "should-coulda's" I have "wishes and wants"....

Like I wish I was as funny as he is. He is hysterical. People have actually lost bodily control when around him. I am not just missing the math or spelling gene from my family pool, I am also missing the humor gene. I once thought of going on a humor mission trip, but they didn't have Franzia there, so I was out.

I also wish we lived closer. He is in Kentucky. I am in H-Town. Bad times. It is hard to kick ass at a game of spades when you live, roughly, 20 hours away. Or, it is hard to recount that time when we had a few cocktails (AKA: 97 solo cups of keg beer) at Dave Simpson's house and then tow' da goal posts down after whooping the Sooners. One of the best days ever, BTW. (Tam, 'member when we tow' da goal posts down?? You don't want to say it in your office, but you soooooo do).

Another, is that I want his daughter, Annie to know how much her Aunt Jane loves her. Not just when she is 13 and shopping for her first bikini or when she wants to "try" some Wild Island flavored Boones....but all the time.

However.....

In talking with Tam I have become increasingly more neurotic about being a parent. See, Tam was a better parent than me when I was still pregnant, and they still had a long way to go. One thing he is fearful of, as most parents are, is SIDS. I have found myself checking on The Wee One much more frequently since Annie's arrival-I guess my senses are heightened too. So, I check The Hammer (oh, that is his UFC name) all the time to make sure he is still good.
But, all this parenting has made me think about my own Mam. What she must have been thinking. Her parenting ideas, the way she wanted to do things....

And in all of this I realized.....

When she would sneak into my room at night when I was a teenager and feel my feet? She wasn't checking to make sure that I hadn't stuffed my bed with some pillows and snuck out my window...she was making sure I wasn't a victim of SIDS.

Sure I was 15, but can you ever be too sure?

Good Mam.