Memory lane...

Now that my younger niece is almost a year old I was reminiscing about just after she was born.

My sister-in-law had a scheduled c-section (her first birth ended up being an emergency c-section, and her insurance company insisted that for her second child she had to have another section). The baby developed respiratory problems almost immediately after she was born (recognised complication of a c-section delivery). Anyways, both my sister-in-law and my baby niece ended up having to stay in the hospital an extra few days.

My older niece who was 3 years old at the time began to really miss my sister-in-law. So, my brother, in his infinite wisdom, thought that it would be a great soother to show my older niece the video of her parents’ wedding (i.e, my brother and sister-in-law’s wedding 8 years earlier) so that she could ‘see’ her mommy.

After watching the video for a few minutes, my older niece began to cry hysterically!!!! It took my brother forever to calm her down to the point where she could even speak. At that point, when my brother asked her what was wrong – she whimpered “How come I wasn’t at your wedding? How come you didn’t let me go? What did I do wrong Daddy? Everyone else was there! Gramma, Papa, Grampa, Baba, my aunties, my uncle….where was I? And if everyone was there, who was looking after me???!!!!! Did you leave me alone?!!!! Didn’t you love me? Didn’t you want me there??!!!!” (almost verbatim - my family are talkers!) And then she started crying again! She was devastated!

If I didn’t feel my heart break on my niece’s behalf, I would have laughed hysterically…

Out of the mouths of babes!