Granddaughter #4

On Holy Thursday, my husband ("Papa" to our grandchildren) and I ("Grammy") left VA, where we've been helping out our middle son and his wife for the past few months by watching their little guy, six-month-old G-Man, and where we'll be living until May (when his mommy plans to quit working outside the home).  We arrived in MI on Thursday night, and from the minute we crossed the threshold of our oldest boy's home, we began to pray fervently that the new baby he and his wife were expecting--with an April 9 due date--would arrive ASAP.  We had plans to stay for the week after Easter to help out, and the sooner the little one made his or her appearance, the better.  We wanted to be able to be as much help as possible.  We would have been crushed if the baby decided to come late and we'd had to leave before the big event.

Well, the wee one complied by making her entrance five days ahead of schedule, just two days after we got here.  In the evening on Holy Saturday, she was born at home (during a stretch where Papa and I, along with our youngest son, took the girls out to the park to play, to Pizza Hut for dinner, and then to Meijer for some super exciting one-cent rides on a big pretend horsey named Sandy but dubbed "Sammy" by our granddaughters).  Luckily, our daughter-in-law tends to have relatively short labors.  Before we knew it, we'd gotten the call that "City Girl" had arrived, mother and baby were doing fine, and we could come back to the house and meet her.  (I know it annoys some blog readers when bloggers give their kids and grandkids phony names--but that's just the way I roll here.  She lives in rural MI, but City Girl she is.)

How fitting that this little lass was given my husband's mother's name as her middle name; my dear mother-in-law died on Holy Saturday six years ago, eight months before our oldest son got married.

So!  We had an extra-special Easter present around here.  City Girl is a real beauty.  She's got the most perfect little face, with the most delicate, doll-like features (said her Grammy, in her typically unbiased fashion).  Her big sisters, the twins and Little Gal, are very taken with her.  They say things like "Listen to her sweet little cry," and "Aww, isn't she a little cutie pie?"  They are a trio of little mommies in the making.

It's so funny seeing our firstborn, who had four younger brothers and no sisters, surrounded by all these girls.  As my sister-in-law, a mother of four grown daughters who is married to one of my husband's younger brothers, assured him: "You will be your girlies' hero."

I believe he will.