A New Life

Wonderful news came on Thursday: one of my nieces has just had a daughter!

My mum has 12 grandchildren and now, at the age of 70, she has the first great-grandchild.

My niece is only a year older than my daughter. It lets me know that time is flying, but so does everything else around me. This baby girl is the first in the next generation. As I remember my own childhood, I also remember that of my children and their cousins. We talk about one incident or another with nostalgia. The very clever things one or the other said, how naughty they could be sometimes and how they made us laugh. If there was a confirmation or a first communion, one of the ways of celebrating was also a small and cosy concert - by my brother and his daughters and anyone that was willing to sing along - my sister's daughters or my kids. In summer my kids sometimes had some holidays at my mum's and they pulled out the couch and some five or six kids slept there - not because of lack of space, mind you. Things like that. It happens that one of my children or myself start a sentence: "Remember that time when..." and say something about one of the cousins and the time they spent together.

Well, one of them is a mommy now. Not the oldest one. And the baby is called Julija (pronounce: Yuhliyah). And my not yet 45-years old brother is a grandpa and the granny, his wife, is even younger (41) and there are FIVE new aunts and so on and so on. What am I? I guess I'm a great aunt like from one of Charles Dickens' novels... My daughter couldn't wait for this baby to be born and was and is very very happy to hear about her. The only thing tat annoys her now is... she is still just a cousin... of her mum... well, it's still so nice to know abut that little princess, isn't it?

(Julija on her granddad's blog)