Bring me the babies

The latest big family news is that Nick and Cara had a baby! I am now an aunt!

This is an important milestone towards improving my (because, yes, this is about me) somewhat lukewarm relationship with babies and young children.

To clarify, I've always LOVED my friends' kids. Even kids of acquaintances, if I really like the acquaintance. It's a default recommendation for the child, and we immediately have something in common: we both like your parents.

Strangers' kids are wildcards; there's no way to know what's going on with them. They might be fine, they might be a mess.

My new niece is going to be awesome.

A couple weeks after Henriette Josephine was born, Ellen and I made our first trip down to Iowa City for a meet and greet. Like any self-respecting mid-westerners, we brought a casserole and dessert.



An aside: Recently, I came across this handwritten recipe of my grandma's. I love seeing my grandparents' handwriting, so I felt a lot of warm, cozy feelings, and decided to help this Chicken Rice Bake live through the generations.

We get to Iowa City, and Henriette is, of course, wonderful. There was about a 15 minute period during which I felt panicky about small babies. What if I forget how to hold things and drop her!!!!! What if I sneeze and fall down!!! So many things can go wrong!!! How is she so tiny!!!

But then it was all fine and I couldn't hold her enough. Henriette even came to a brewery, and to brunch, and was the most chill person in the group.

Then we had to go. Sadness!!! Bye for now, Henriette!!! You are the best and we LOOOOOVE you!!!




The only real blight on the whole time was, unfortunately, the Chicken Rice Bake. You may have noticed it calls for cream of celery/mushroom/chicken, and I learned cream of anything is pretty gross. There's a chance my grandma wrote out this recipe for someone she didn't like that much.