Welcome to Love

We share a middle name. I did not expect that. Nor I did expect how quick and unannounced grandmother tears come. They showed up first in the shower the morning I knew my daughter was in labor and again standing by the sink in her kitchen a dozen hours later as my husband washed birth off his granddaughter's head.

"Can Dad wash her hair before you leave?" our daughter asked. She has watched her daddy bathe babies for two and a half decades. While she closed her eyes and rested deep on her pillow, her father showed her husband how to wash a little girl's hair. And I wiped tears.

Our only girl delivered her first born girl Tuesday morning. We are four days into learning this new role of grandparents. We all feel new at this. Us as grandparents. Our daughter and son-in-law as parents. The baby at living. She cries loud then is sound asleep seconds later. Each day she figures out a bit more what she likes and does not like. She teaches us those preferences moments after learning them herself. She wrinkles her forehead, stretches, sticks out her tongue tasting air, and searching for her momma. Her five pounds fits perfectly in the bend of the elbow. She is hardly big enough to need two hands. She has set our hearts on fire.

When I was pregnant with my second child I asked Rich how it works loving more than one child. He already had three living children and one who had returned to Jesus young; my second pregnancy delivered his fifth child. "Is the feeling of love lessen for one and increase for the other?" I asked in my parenting naivety. Does the love divide, I wondered. Years and additional children taught me what no one can explain. There is simply more. Love yields more love like baby girls grow to deliver baby girls. And the same property of love welcomes another generation.

Welcome to the family Blaise Maria.
Welcome to love.