Lime KA-POW

I remember very few things about kindergarten. But for some reason I do remember the day some kid in class brought his baby niece for show and tell. Our teacher, Mrs. Murray, asked who else in the class had a niece or a nephew. Well this was Utah, the land of gigantic families with longs spans between children so quite a few hands went up. Including mine. To which my teacher said, “Miss Katie, you are the oldest in y our family so I don’t think you have any yet.” I remember being a little embarrassed about being called out must mostly disappointed that having a niece or nephew wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

Well it was a twenty five year wait but these two good lookin’ kids are finally having the first Clifford grandbaby.
After my initial and selfish reaction of “does this mean Tasha is dropping off the Wasatch Back Team???” I have been BURSTING to tell everyone about our soon-to-be Clifflet. Apparently right now it’s the size of a lime.

Now I understand that people have been having babies for thousands and thousands of years, that there are millions of babies being born right this second in fact, and so there is nothing special or unusual about yet another one.

But.

It’s the first one for us. And as I have discovered with so many experiences in my life-this may have already happened a billion times to a billion people but it will feel totally new and unique when it’s happening to our family.

This baby will be the first grandchild on both sides and comes into a family with lots of aunts, uncles and grandparents. It’s almost obscene how much attention baby cliff will get. When I talked to my brother Sterling, his first comment was, “the race starts now for favorite aunt or uncle.”

Aunt Katie. Gives me the same little rush in my tummy I get on a roller coaster. Or maybe baby cliff won’t be able to say my name right for a few years and I’ll be assigned a nickname that will no doubt end up on a t-shirt. I can't wait to feed it too much sugar, send toys that make annoying noises and let it stay up too late when I babysit. I'm thrilled to finally have stories about what adorable thing my little niece/nephew said.

I’m excited to watch Christopher and Tasha become parents. One of the best parts about getting in-laws has been seeing a new side of brothers I’ve known my entire life. Not only they have both brought wonderful women into our family, but they are also kind, tender, strong, patient, ambitious, fun husbands. It will be so fun to see the little boy who used to carry classical music tapes around and was afraid of the moon be called “daddy.”

But mostly I’m just excited to meet this little person. I can’t wait to see what parts will be Clifford and which parts will be Archuletta and which parts will be brand new.

This is one lucky little lime.