Reflections on a newborn

When Will’s cousin Nathan was born, we took him to the hospital for a visit. Will had been preoccupied for quite some time with a photo of himself as a newborn, the most distinguishing characteristic of which is that he was bright red, so for days he kept asking, “Will Baby Nathan be red? Was I red? Why was I red? Did I get pink later?” etc. At the hospital, however, he became more interested in the odd plastic thing attached to that weird belly button. Thank goodness he was so engrossed in the whole navel issue that he didn’t notice the circumcision bandages. Finally, he became interested in how loud Nathan was, for somebody so small. At some point someone in the room asked if he wanted a tiny baby like that at his house, to which he replied, “No, that one makes my ears hurt.”

Laura of course was much more interested in the whole baby thing in general and held Nathan as much as she could, which wasn’t much, since he couldn’t come out of his little Blue Light Special jaundice bed except briefly for feedings and diaper changes. She has, though repetition, taught William phrases like, “look how cute!” and “awww.” She looked positively mini-Madonna, holding that baby—more comfortably than his grandfather, I might add, no doubt from more practice. I haven’t had a chance to take them back for another visit yet, since Laura is STILL in school and the times I’ve gone, I’ve been cooking and whatnot so the new Mom could sleep, but we’ll see the baby again this weekend for Christmas, so it’ll be good to see what they think about him now.