Circles

This is my baby brother Jeff gazing into the eyes of his new baby daughter, Greenliee. Have you ever seen a more beautiful, round, alert minutes-old child? All babies are angels, but this one looks the part. I think she'll have great skin tone for life.

My brother Jeff called Tuesday with the wonderful news that he and his wife Madison delivered their first baby. I've been blessed to be a new aunt a dozen times over, with cute kids I love and that I am so glad can be my children's special friends.

This little niece (well, not quite little -- she weighed in at 8 lbs. 11 oz.!) forms a different link. She is born to someone, my brother, that I remember fondly as a baby too. I loved him more than anything. I changed his diapers and made his baby food. I paraded him through the neighborhood in the stroller, just for fun. I read him stories and taught him how to sit on my up-high feet when I lay down like a letter L. Our mom found out just recently that I often soothed Jeffy in the middle of the night, helping him get back to sleep. (We slept on opposite sides of the same wall, he and I, and I'd hear him cry before my mom did.)

When he learned to talk he called me Nennies.

Jeffy was 13 when my oldest child Kyle was born. Now Kyle is 13.

These circles in our lives are amazing, wrapping us in tight, bringing us back to where we began. Jeffy has been the rough-and-tumble playful teddy bear of an uncle, showing my kids that he loves them the higher he throws them in the air. They can't get enough of him. No wonder I recognize that look on Greenliee's face, it's the same one my kids show whenever they see this uncle they adore.

Come on, Jeffy, let's play. Come on, Daddy.

Jeffy, I know you'll be a wonderful father, even if it does make me feel so old that you are. Congratulations to you and Madison.

Welcome to the world, Greenliee! I can't wait to meet you.