There is a new member of our family, and all words feel patently ridiculously predictable. "Miraculous" doesn't replicate the adrenaline rush, the heart-thumping anxieties, the feel of that newly exposed-to-our-atmosphere skin. 'Iokepa and I were immutable fixtures just outside the door at the moment of her birth (and for ten hours before). We were inside that door with baby in arms immediately after. (At the climatic moments I was literally on my knees with my head glued to the door.)
Outside of Johns Hopkins Hospital, the storm raged snow and ice; inside we didn't notice. Ramona Alice, eight pounds and seven ounces in total, commanded full attention. She emerged with dark curly hair and big dark eyes like her father, my son - but she is spectacularly distinctive. She carries a terrifically varied gene pool, and neither of her new grandmothers see our own newborns in this little girl.
I am the mother of sons - and so, this divinely feminine creature makes me giggle at the prospect of the possibilities (and I am not speaking fashion) But like every emergent human - it is she who will train the adults around her. Already, we are an entire city of humans at her beck and call.
In this first week, two grandmothers hover over our son and our daughter, as our son and our daughter hover over Ramona. Clearly they have first claim - and responsibility. Oh, but we, too, have so much to say, so much to do, and so much to share with this olive skinned charmer - and a lifetime to do it. Hawai'i has never felt closer to Baltimore.