(no subject)

[seekingferret]

I am an uncle! My sister gave birth to her first daughter yesterday morning around 4:30AM.

Baby is super-adorable in photos, at least. I haven't seen her yet. My sister is being standoffish and trying to protect herself from too much family interference in the birth process, which I can respect. She told my mom some sort of delaying lies/half-truths as she was going into labor, apparently to keep her mother-in-law from swarming the hospital and being a pest (My sister's mother in law can be a bit much to take). My parents and her husbands' parents visited the baby yesterday, but I was encouraged not to visit yet. And the naming was to be at my brother-in-law's shul this morning, but my mom said she had the impression he didn't want people there. Maybe Sunday. Maybe later. The best plan is to respect my sister's boundaries.

Later last night, my troll-creationist father explained to me that seeing his squirming, lizard-like granddaughter had inspired him to invent a brand new biological theory I immediately pointed out to him was actually just good old Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny. "It was only discredited three hundred years ago," I said, but I see now that I shortchanged my father. It was only discredited about a century ago, in actuality, although Laurence Sterne definitely was making fun of some homunculus/preformationist-inflected version of it three hundred years ago in Tristram Shandy. My father's genius is a strange beast, unlike my own in so many ways, yet perhaps equally strange in its own fashion. I hope my niece discovers her own strange forms of genius.

Comments

[the_rck]

Congratulations on your new niece!

[seekingferret]

Thanks!

[bookherd]

Congratulations! I feel like your dad's theorizing at least leaves some room for a wisecrack about being a monkey's uncle, but I'll let you make that call.

And good on you for respecting family boundaries, especially where a newborn is concerned, because yikes that is a thing that everyone wants to get in the middle of.

[seekingferret]

Thanks!

[cahn]

Congratulations on your niece! And, yeah, I totally endorse the plan of respecting your sister's boundaries. You're being a good brother :)

[seekingferret]

Thanks!

[ambyr]

Mazel tov! (I am amused at the contrast between your sister and my cousin, who had a guest list longer than most weddings for her upcoming baby naming. But whatever makes the new parents happy! It’s not like the baby’s gonna care.)

[seekingferret]

Thanks!

[snippy]

Mazel tov! And good respecting of boundaries.

[seekingferret]

Thanks!

[brainwane]

Seconding others' message on congrats and thanks!

[seekingferret]

Thanks!