first fotos

These are my first photos of Ayvlyn, my dear niece, taken yesterday evening with my camera phone when I visited her and Gillian and Steve at the hospital.

You can't really see her face very well in this one and her eyes are closed, she's sort of slouched into her swaddle, but you can tell that she has a head and a bit of hair. You can also see a little bit of Gillian's arm there, too.

In this one I'm standing there and smiling, happy because I'm holding Ayvlyn. She's kind of sleeping, but there was awhile when I was there that she was looking around at different things (me included) with her 8cm sight range. She didn't smile, but I think she's happy nonetheless. In the background you can see a very pastel-y painting and the "Soiled Linen" container. But the highlight is her little sleepy face underneath the spotlight...

Ah, sweet life--. Some days it seems that only poetry or soaring music can hold the simple beauty and love of it all... But maybe all you parents out there feel a little differently. After all, you're the ones who deal with the cranky nights and sicknesses and tears and fears of these tender and fragile little lives. Though I suppose there's beauty and love in those things too, maybe especially in those things. In the end, the love born in the fullness of life, in the joy and sadness, in the triumphs and failures, in those easy moments and then the difficult ones--the love that is carried through thick and thin, and comes to its realization in all the various peculiarities of living together--this love is borne into Life itself...

a niece is born

I'm writing to you in a very fine and rather giddy mood because I have fallen head over heels in love. And I know you're thinking that it's pretty weird to write an email about it, but it's not and I think you're weird to think that it's weird. Because honestly, it's one glorious day since I get to say that only yesterday a baby girl was born to my brother Steve and wife Gillian. I love them very much and I love my new niece, the newest member of the Doucet-Campbell families. She is very small still, but I have a feeling that given a bit of time she's going to grow. And even though I think she's gorgeous right now, it's possible that other people might think she looks a little flat-nosed, long-skulled, and like a fuzzy alien. Either way, though, she's beautiful because she's a fresh furnace of life, newborn and in good health.

Her name is Ayvlyn Cora Doucet Campbell and she was born at 3.24pm on Sunday, January 6 (which happens to be the twelfth day of Christmas, also Epiphany Sunday in the liturgical calendar, and Eastern Orthodox Christmas Eve--Yowzah!!). She was born at 8 lbs. and 10.7 ounces, packed into trim 20 inches.

And I don't have any pictures yet, but I hope to soon, and when I do I will post them here. And I will post other things too, like any proud uncle would. That's right, I have no shame in saying that I'm going to be a proud uncle, with tears in his eyes with every baby milestone, from first poops to first steps to first words and so on... I'll be keeping (possibly sporadic) updates on my blog about uncle-y type things. But be assured, even if you don't read about it here, Ayvlyn is on my mind and in my heart...

So, all this to say, I'm now officially a proud uncle to the most beautiful baby I know (sorry to all you other babies--you're all cute too, but just not quite as cute as my niece)...