new family member, new life

So, today I'm going to be an aunt. My best friend in the entire universe is currently in the process of having her baby. Hopefully, she won't be in labor for too long. How exciting. Yesterday, I was out for our last day of motherless/auntless freedom for lunch and Target (come on, it's me and Becca, of course we went to Target)and Becca said she never felt so ready and unprepared for anything at the same time. I can understand that. Her whole life (and mine to a far lesser degree) is going to go through a complete overhaul. She's prepared because she's been around kids for a long time and she was a nanny so she understands well how to meet their needs and interact with them, and she's prepared because she as the things she needs to take care of the baby, as well as the family and friends to provide help and support and love. She's unprepared only because she has no experience of being a mother, but I suppose it comes naturally. I think Becca is very ready, and I'm so excited to be a part of her life, Steve's life, and Lilian's (that's my niece)life.

Becca said yesterday that she was excited for Lily to be born, because she really wants to meet her. You know, that thought had never occurred to me before. We really haven't met Lily at all. We don't know what she looks like, whether or not she looks more like Steve, Becca, or that computer produced picture of Sloth from the Goonies that they got made at Dave and Busters a long time ago. ("Chuuuuuuuunk!")We don't know if she's a happy baby or a finicky one. We don't know if she'll be sassy or easy-going, we know nothing except that we love her already, even though she hasn't yet materialized as anything other than a ball on Becca's middle. It was nice to hear that Becca was excited to meet the baby.

It makes me realize I live in a very adult-centric world. I hadn't even thought of the baby having a personality. I know they do, but it never occurred to me. It's also weird to know that this baby in Becca's belly is going to grow up to be a real person, who I can talk to and play with, and hopefully she loves me and she feels like she can always come to me about anything, even things she might be scared to come to Becca and Steve about. I hope she knows how much I loved her even before she was born, and I'm sure I'll only be able to love her more once I get to know her.

I really shouldn't be so adult-centric, I mean, my career revolves around small children. My job at PP revolves around small children, and I am always attentive to their needs. Over the past 5 years working with children and babies, I have developed the sense for identifying which of the child's basic needs they feel aren't being met. In my career as an early childhood educator, I'm going to use those skills to be all that I can to the kids I'm responsible for. When I am in photographer mode or teacher mode, I am kid-centric; when I get off work, my life is about me and friends and stuff I like to do that doesn't involve kids. I think that's fair, but it's going to change with Lily, because she's not work, she's my life for real, which is scary.

That said, I feel somehow that I might be a wretch for feeling sad that I won't be able to just be hanging out with Becca all the time on the drop if a hat anymore. She and I do everything together and it's most always on the fly. Like yesterday, I called Becca to ask if she was ready to have a baby, and she said yeah, that she needed to go to target (haha) and I asked if she wanted to have lunch and go to target, so we did. No more of that without the baby, and once Lily gets older, it'll be harder to drag her out because no kid likes going shopping and stuff like that. I guess I'll get over it, but I'm going to miss my no responsibility life with Becca. Does that make me evil?

In other regular grown up news not regarding babies and my transformation into grown-updom:

I bought a laptop 6 days ago with a freaking sweet fabulous 40%off coupon Kevay found me, and tracking says it should be here today. I love it. I want to get my grubbies on this computer like no one knows. By the way, did you see it was 40% off. Dell is the bestest.

I also attended Otakon again. This makes it my... third year. It was awesome. I dressed up as Mahoromatic from the anime Mahoromatic. I was the only one in the costume cause its an old series. I wanted to go as her last year, but I had negative 3 sewing knowledge. I had a lot of fun and we dressed up, saw some great stuff and some awesomely bad (thank you VH1) stuff. For instance, this Korean film was about a prostitute who was pregnant with her own retarded (he got retarded after a factory accident, as it was explained) brother, and they met a female serial killer known as the Scorpion, and befriended her. I left like an hour into the movie because it was making my brain rot, but you see just how awesomely bad (tm) it was.

Kevay dressed up as the OS-tan personification of windows 98, and was a super hit. We went to Hooters on Saturday night and one of the waitresses was super excited about all of our costumes and just had to put on Kevay's win 98 box he made. It was fun, I took a picture.

The whole weekend was very fun, and of course, I'll go again next year, and then the day after will scarily be (dun dun duuuuun) my first day as a student teacher. (gasp!)

Yesterday I got to pick up my uber fat ass check from school (thank you, hard work and scholarships I worked my ass off for) so that I am no longer poor and in danger of overdraftng my account. I will use this to pay for said laptop and pay off most of my bills. Woot!

Well, I'm off to cover Steve's shift at the pool store while he becomes a dad, and hopefully, as stated on the interweb, my computer should also come there while I work.

Best. Week. Ever.

By the way, next time I write, I'll be more growed up than I was today.