If you just watch things, just sit still and let the world exist in front of you - sometimes I swear that just for a second time freezes and the world pauses in its tilt. Just for a second. And if you somehow found a way to live in that second, then you would live forever. ~ Lauren Oliver

My younger brother's first baby is due any day now, and the rest of the family daily guesses names and marvels at the idea that there will be a whole new person with us very soon.  The day my nephew was born, I wondered aloud to my mom how strange it was that I had just met him and already loved him so much.  "I'd never even laid eyes on him until today, and now it's hard to remember the family without him."  My mom replied with something along the lines of "Well, of course," but it was stunning to me how the heart instantly expands.  It's a girl, my brother and his wife have already announced, and I'm eager to feel, for the third time now, that rush of auntly love and surely-you've-somehow-been-here-with-us-all-along when I hold my new niece the first time.  

"Thirty-six," largely due to my younger brother's news, has been a year of nostalgia so far for me.  Each year now seems to fly by faster than the one before, and maybe because 2013 has had me looking both forward and backward even more than usual, I feel like I've lost track of this one somewhere along the way.  While I was home for my birthday in May, my sister-in-law announced her pregnancy.  When I went home in September, it was for the autumn-themed baby shower.  And next month's visit will find my younger brother now a parent.  I remember riding the hopital elevator up to the maternity unit the day he was born in 1982.  The next time I was visiting my hometown hospital's maternity unit, it was 2004 and my older brother had just become a dad.  And didn't all these things happen just yesterday?  No, really.  I don't understand anymore how time passes.  Lately the scene in Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little Town on the Prairie keeps coming to mind in which Mrs. Bradley makes everyone in attendance cry on musical literary night by singing "Backward, turn backward, Oh Time in thy flight.  Make me a child again, just for tonight."  Picture me here pulling out my handkerchief along with Laura and Ma.  My younger brother is days away from being a dad.  Those who served as my former elementary school's principal, custodian, and secretary while I was a student there have all died this past year.  And all of this while I continue write, little by little, a memoir of my 1980s childhood.  "Those were nice years," my dad said of that time while I was home in September.  "You kids were all still pretty young, and Papa and Grandma were still alive. . . ."  My heart was almost too full to respond to him then, and it feels full-to-bursting now as I picture my once-Pound-Puppies-and-Connect-Four-loving brother with his wife and baby beside him this Thanksgiving.  "They were such good years," was all I managed to get out to Dad, and I want to pause here tonight and just sit quietly and look at my favorite pictures from this fall before any more of it passes passes and say "Thank You."  Because these are good years too.  

♥

Mr. Dylan Starts Kindergarten

My nephew, who I still picture as the chubby baby who used to get a kick out of being repeatedly "attacked" by one of my stuffed sheepdog toys while he sat on my bed, giggling and surrounded by piles of my blankets and bed pillows, began kindergarten today. Kindergarten! My heart! My little "Mr. Dylan!" My older brother emailed me a photo of his boarding the bus, and as I looked at it, I joined countless other parents and family members who this week find themselves exclaiming "Kindergarten!? How is that possible!?"
 
Dylan's arrival was especially exciting for me since I'd been afraid I'd miss it: I was scheduled to move out of state soon for my graduate school internship and practicum and thought maybe he'd be late. Instead, he arrived two weeks early, and I, then his only aunt, quickly filled the blog I kept then with nephew-related photos and updates. It was such a happy time.

The day of his birth was only the second time I'd ever seen my older brother cry, was the first time I'd seen a woman so close to labor, was the day I got to see my own "baby" brother (in the ball cap below) become an uncle, and was the happiest I remember my brothers and I ever being for each other. The shot below captures us all in one of our sweetest moments together. It is one of my favorite family photos.

I took tons of pictures after Dylan was born, left the hospital to go back to my parents' house--my parents were now grandparents?!!--with my mom to make cupcakes for my family and for the maternity ward staff while she called family and friends to let them know Dylan had safely arrived, worked in my pink and white garden for a little while--and Dylan, the afternoon of your birth was a gorgeous one--and then went back to the hospital to drop off the cupcakes and visit my nephew and his parents some more. I remember saying to my mom how strange it was that we had all just "met" Dylan and just instantly loved him so much, and she said, "Well, of course," but it was surprising to me, the depth of this new love.

That first night, I gave Dylan his first present from me: A bib I'd ordered ahead of time that read "Aunt Val Loves Me." My older brother and my sister-in-law kept telling everyone, "Let Val hold him. She's moving soon and won't get to see him for awhile." The last time I held little Dylan before I moved for my internship, my mom watched and said, "You're trying to memorize his face," and it made me cry. She was right. And when I saw Dylan again months later, he looked completely different to me: Chubby and bundled up in a snowsuit, and he was shy around me and didn't want me to hold him. That was hard. I loved the little guy and was so tickled to see him again, and he didn't know me at all. In time, we bonded again, though, and he became my "Mr. Dylan!" and since he couldn't pronounce "Aunt Val," I became his "Annie Owl." Everyone would laugh and melt when he'd say that, and I wish no one had ever corrected him.

Today my "Mr. Dylan" started Kindergarten, then, and while I couldn't be there, he was on my mind all day. I hope that when his little "First Day of School" package from me reaches him, it finds him happy and having fun and making new friends. (My mom called while I was typing that line, actually, to report that he did indeed have a fun first day.)   I love you, Mr. Dylan, and even if I live far away and have to be your pen pal, I will remain, forever and always, your "Annie Owl." ♥