Auntiehood: Day One

Okay, today is my first 24 hours as an aunt, and to celebrate, I’m eating a piece of apple crumble pie with a scoop of ice cream for dinner. This aunt business rocks.

Seriously, as I just wrote to my gal-pal Monika, this morning it was all I could do to NOT skip crazily down the hallway at work, crying out at the top of my lungs, "I'm an auntie! I'm an auntie!!!!" LOL Instead, I resorted to a little irritating day-long joke: at intervals throughout the day, I'd say to my co-worker, "Julian, did you know? I'm an auntie!!!!" It was pretty funny when, at the end of the day:

Self: “Julian, did you know …”

Julian, finally worn down, starts to roll his eyes.

Self: “… that you’ve been really great for putting up with all my auntie talk today!” :->

Zing!!! Got him! LOL

There’s a sick little corner of my mind that finds it funny when I deliberately annoy people like that. :)

So yes, auntie talk throughout most of the day, sharing with unwitting co-workers my happiness with about two new babies (to be fair, they were awesome in their responses and pleasure for my sake – they’re good peeps!!!). And then one of the most amazing things happened: Daryl, the crusty, cynical, acerbic guy the next cube over peeked around the wall.

“Did I hear you say that you just became an aunt?”

[This alone is a major admission for Daryl. Despite my shameless eavesdropping and sometimes participating in his conversations when I feel there is important information my team could provide, Daryl’s still warming up to the cube-wall-isn’t-really-a-barrier concept (If you want something to blame for my behaviour, I give you my last work environment – we talked through the cubicle walls all the time). (To be clear - I don't eavesdrop on personal stuff - it's just a work thing.)]

I responded, glowingly, that yes, in fact, I did recently become an aunt.

Then he showed me a picture of his two-week-old niece who was born in Peru. He told me how incredible it was, and how before she was born, he didn’t really care about the future beyond when he died. And now suddenly it matters to him a great deal. (Sooooo “Children of Men”!!!) He glowed with (dare I suggest this?) happiness when he talked about how his brother would be returning with the baby and her mother in June.

I have heard and seen this man experience glee at someone’s folly, heard him laugh evilly when deleting unsupported software from an end-user’s machine, and enjoyed the rapier wit of this exceptionally articulate person as he excoriated someone less intelligent or aware (this usually after hanging up from a perfectly pleasant-sounding and civil telephone conversation), but this is the first time I saw Daryl be happy and – soft. And it blew me away.

So mock me if you must about the fuss that I’m creating about this brand-new niece and nephew of mine. If unclehood can do what I described above to Daryl, I figure that my reactions are well within normal parameters! :)