365 Days (Part 1) | ✓

55. Holding Hands

55. Holding Hands: The first time you held someone's hand.

My Bestest Buddy Binklesworth

My mom is a baby hogger.

I am not kidding. When I launch my t-shirt business, I will be making her a custom tee with the words "I'm a baby hogger. #DealWithIt" written across. If there is a newborn baby in the room, it will be speedily transferred to her arms and there it will stay. She always says stuff about the smell of a baby's head or whatever. Personally, I'm not really into smelling people's heads, just as a matter of courtesy, but I've never noticed babies smelling any different. Except, of course, when they poop. Then they emit noxious fumes unbearable to inhale.

It was a miracle I got to hold Charlotte then.

There has never been anyone I loved more than Charlotte. I don't know what it is about seeing someone progress from the the womb to a helpless baby to an overly sassy three-year-old that just makes you feel this overwhelming, all-consuming love. We have a closer relationship than most aunts and nieces. After all we babysit her during the weekdays, and I have helped raise her. She's like my little sister, with the added benefit that I get to send her home to her parents each day. She sits on my lap when I homeschool, she makes me dance with her to Sesame Street songs, and she always is trying to get me goldfish. I love her.

Charlotte was born on March 14, 2014 to my second eldest brother and his wife. She was a bit an anomaly: My family was boys. Boys everywhere, boys always. My mom had five boys herself. I am the only girl and she adopted me. It was inconceivable, then, that Charlotte was a girl.

Charlotte was the first grandchild, the first neice, the first child... she was a lot of firsts. I remember sitting in the hospital lobby with my dad and my brother while she was born. I had Eragon with me, but I couldn't focus on the words because I'm too excited. Me and Zachary beg Dad for some cash. He hands it over and we lope over to the vending machines, full of power from the five dollars we now had. (In our early, formative years, we were always broke.)

Except we couldn't get the dang thing to work and had to fetch Dad to help us.

"Can't you get one measly soda by yourself?" he asked, sighing and smiling at the same time.

"No, we're idiots," I said without pause. There was a cute boy walking past as I said it and he laughed out loud and grinned at me.

I remember getting to go into the labor room for a few minutes, before anything started to happen, and I sat on this yoga ball that reminded me of those bouncy balls with handles we used to ride back in elementary school P.E.

I remember we went home, and then the call from Mom (who had stayed) later that day, to tell us we had a new addition to our family. And the drive back to the hospital was full of this anticipation.

Usually you don't realize when you're life changes forever. Sometimes you do, and it's surreal. It doesn't feel like your life yet. And yet, neither does your old life. You're in a limbo waiting for the scales to tip.

All hospital rooms look the same to me: dark blue furniture with tiny dots as a pattern, speckled ceilings, the regular beeping from the machines. Usually when I go to a hospital, I am there because someone I dearly love is hurt or sick, and so of course I have bad emotions associated with these uniform rooms. Yet this time was different. This time there was smiles and laughter and teasing. Births may be the only happy reason to visit a hospital.

Charlotte is tiny. My goodness, how can something this tiny even exist? Such slender fingers, such wispy hair, such small movements. She's all bundled up in a rabbit soft blanket with her name stitched on the side. Her tiny mouth opens and closes with soft mewling noises. Like a kitten.

I don't have much experience with babies. The last time I held a baby she had not been in my arms before she spit up on me.

Spit up: A word for baby puke, because they throw up so much they get their own special word for it.

I was a little scared of Charlotte. What if I broke her? She looked awfully fragile. She was like a porcelain doll, and I was terrified of making it crack.

Mom took her at first, and wouldn't have let her go, but Charlotte's parents insisted "Auntie Hannah" be allowed to hold Charlotte. So I was sternly told of what to do, given warning looks of what not to do and that it was absolutely, absolutely imperative that I support the head and butt.

I sat down, pillows padding me in. Charlotte was gently laid in my arms and I held her for the first time of many times.

Evey movement, every little breath and sigh meant a lot more when it was in my arms.

Her fingers curled around the blanket in her sleep. Mom, a piano teacher, claimed she had the most perfect piano hands. She was already envisioning training the next Mozart or Bach or Chopin.

I gently lifted the hand it curled around my finger.

Well, I'm done. I've found my purpose in life.