dr_pretentious | Katherine Georgia Upton, to be called Kate

She's the smallest human being I've ever met in person. At birth, she weighed 6 lbs 7.4oz and was 19.25 inches long. No doubt by the time I go back to Rockville this weekend to see her again, she'll already be bigger.

Kate's the first baby of her generation on all four branches of her family. Her birth redefined dozens of people, conferring whole new identities on them. She has two aunts and two uncles who've never been aunts or uncles before, four new first-time grandparents and four first-time great-grandparents still living, and scads of great-aunts and great-uncles who'd never been great-hyphenated-relatives of any sort until 3:15pm on the 26th of July. Even her very numerous first cousins once removed, who have been other people's first cousins once removed only in the other generational direction, are having their minds blown.

We will be, to Kate, people we have never quite been before. As in fiction, every new character is a new world in herself, and every new character makes the world anew.

Having seen with my own eyes that my sister is recovering well and that my niece actually exists, I came home. Dan and I are going back down Friday, since he couldn't come with me. We'll probably miss Balefire's Lammas celebration. (Hey, Cat, what time on Sunday would be too late for us to show up on your doorstep? We really want to be in both places, but I don't know if we can pull it off.)

Anyone about to be inconvenienced by my new state of aunthood can at least take comfort in the fact that I no longer have to preface all logistical negotiations with, "Of course, I don't know when my sister's going to go into labor."