Imminent delivery
The water's been broken, the labor's in progress. It appears that some time after midnight I will become a grandmother. It's an event that I know will be life-changing, probably in ways that I can't imagine. I'm not a complete stranger to babies even though I never birthed one myself. I spent plenty of time babysitting infants. I know how to avoid that stream of pee to the face when you change a diaper on a boy. I know how to use that suction thingie to get the snot out of their little noses. I know how to walk around doing that special bouncy thing while singing to get them to fall asleep after what seems like hours of screaming. I know that feeding a one year old is more art than science and I know how to manifest the patience of Job when needed. And while I know a lot of things about caring for small children, what I don't know is what it's like to intimately know a child from birth onward through the years of their life. I have nieces and nephews, but I was never much involved in their lives. I've watched them grow up from a distance, not really knowing who they are other than the occasional meeting at a family get-together. I think, and hope, that this will be different. I'm excited and quite frankly, a little scared.