Welcome Baby!

I am back from an amazing weekend. I mentioned in my last post that I was going to Arizona for the weekend for the birth of my nephew. Yesterday, my twin brother and his wife (who has become my best friend and truly my sister) welcomed their baby boy into the world. I just had to share this joyous occasion with you all. He’s absolutely perfect.

It was a mix of emotions; it was incredibly amazing to witness my sweet nephew enter the world and take his first breath of life. I am SO glad that everything worked out as it did and that I was able to to be there. It is a moment I will always remember and cherish.

Mom was supposed to make this trip with us. Unfortunately, she is to the point where she hardly comprehends. I think she vaguely understood that the baby was going to be born. But she was concerned in staying in my brother’s small apartment, where she would not have her own room and would be at risk of being seen as a “plain Jane”. The night before we were to leave, dad tried to help her pack her things. She was insistent that they go in their camper trailer so that she could bring her milk, food and have a home for all of her personal belongings. My dad had booked a hotel room and tried many times to explain this to her. Unfortunately, she couldn’t grasp the concept and when she finally understood that the trailer wasn’t being taken, she refused to go.

Thankfully, my sister babysat mom so that my dad could come along on this weekend trip to meet his new grandson. I suppose it worked out that mom didn’t go. It was a nice thought to take her but realistically she wouldn’t have really understood what was going on and she would have been stir crazy without her computer games and controlled environment. It was also nice that dad was able to hang out with us, stay the nights at my brother’s house with the rest of us, and not have to stress out about accommodating mom’s schedule. Still…it is sad that we are at this point in life where mom is not able to be “here” for us during these big moments. That is something I definitely missed as we were all fussing together over the new baby.

When we pulled into dad’s driveway this afternoon (to drop him off after our road trip), mom was waiting and peeking out the living room curtains. She greeted us in the driveway, a smile on her face, happy that dad was home. I showed her pictures of her new grandson and she asked what his name was (despite me telling her several times as I showed her the pictures). When I answered her that his name was Zach, she said,

“Zach Zach, what do you mean by Zach? That’s not a real name Zach, you know what would be nice is if they named him the same name too-after him too” (meaning my brother, Joe) “that would be real good too.”

We all chuckled at that. I don’t know if she’ll remember his name, since she doesn’t seem to be able to retain any new information these days and she has nobody to associate the name Zach with to help her remember. But…we will remind her often :)