I’ve discovered that you can fall in love more than once.
I’m talking about that kind of overwhelming, unconditional love, where you can’t stop thinking about the person and would do anything in the world to make him or her happy.
This new love in my life is an 8-pound, 10-ounce, 20-inch-long, beautiful girl. Of course, I’m talking about my first grandchild, Kennedy!
She was born at 5:55 p.m. Tuesday, and my daughter-in-law, Brandi, was “a trooper,” as my son John said.
John brought Kennedy right up to the window in the nursery, and we got to watch her get weighed and measured, as we tried to communicate with our son through the sound-proof glass by reading lips or making hand gestures. He typed in 8.10 on his cellphone and held it up, and we all gasped.
With Kennedy wrapped tightly in her blanket, my 6-4 tough son, teary-eyed, held her for everyone to see. He was so proud, showing her off and stroking her little face with his fingers.
If she could have focused, she would have seen a goofy-acting bunch of relatives: aunt, uncle, great-aunts and great-uncles, grandfathers, grandmothers and great-grandmother crying, waving, blowing kisses and holding up cellphones to take pictures and videos.
It was the moment we’d talked about and waited for all these months.
Baby Kennedy started sucking her thumb pretty vigorously, and we kept commenting on how alert she was. At first, we thought her hair looked red, which could have come from a grandmother on Brandi’s side.
Later, our son sent a picture and said it was more sandy blond, like his was when he was born — and she has quite a bit of hair. (We are all about babies having some hair in our family, although I promise we would have loved her bald, too.)
My son called me from the nursery as he held her and said he thought she looked like me, my mom and him as babies. Brandi’s sister immediately noticed that Kennedy has Brandi’s mouth. Later, when we got to hold Kennedy, we discovered a dimple in her cheek, and we have no idea where that came from.
We are holding out hope that she does not have my nose, although it looks a little familiar.
Bless her heart, though, she had just gone through a pretty hard journey, and she was swollen, exposed to bright lights, noise and camera flashes, a head-to-toe examination by the great nurses, not to mention a crazy bunch of people passing her off to each other. I kissed her and left my trademark pink lipstick on her face. I have branded every baby in our family that way multiple times. I believe in kissing babies a lot — because they grow up and make you stop that at some point. I believe in rocking babies a lot, because they grow up and get too big at some point.
She already has her own little personality that her parents will discover day by day. They’ll figure out what every cry means and how she likes to be held. They will be exhausted and overwhelmed some days, but they’re already great parents, doing all the right things.
I remember like it was yesterday Kennedy’s daddy being born. I fell in love with him at first sight, a free fall that I wasn’t expecting. I did it again 3 1/2 years later with his brother, Scott.
And then it happened again Tuesday. Only this time, I don’t have near the responsibility, just all the fun.
My mother gave me the T-shirt I am wearing today that has printed on the front: “Mimi — a title just above Queen.”
Of course, I know the truth is that Kennedy’s the queen, and I’ll just be her loyal, smitten subject.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.