Oliver Meets the Great-Great-Grandparents

Did you know that having an infant makes it really hard to find the time to write a blog? Huh. Yeah, me neither.
Sorry for the delay!

About 2 months ago I took a trip to Mississippi to visit my great-grandparents. My great-grandmother has been dying to meet Oliver. She called me all the time when I was pregnant; I tried not to call her too often because when I did she would answer the phone with, "IS THAT BABY COMIN'?" I didn't want to keep getting her so excited.
She would tell me the same stories over and over, about how when she had my great-uncle at home, the doctor came to her house and laid down on her bed saying "I'm tired", in an effort to make her angry. He told her babies come faster if their mothers are angry in labor. She told me how she was never ill while pregnant with my grandfather, but she was horribly sick with my great-uncle. "I could've sworn he was going to be a girl!", she said. She told me about her mother, who was a midwife. The town doctor wouldn't attend a birth unless my great-great grandmother was there with him, and in many cases she attended births on her own. Maybe midwifery is in my blood....

Needless to say, she was overwhelmed with joy when she finally got to meet her great-great-grandson.

...And Oliver thought she was the funniest person in the world!

My great-grandfather is very gentle and quiet. He never says much, but when he does it means something. He was elated to meet Oliver as well; he just held him and stared, smiling for a while. He finally looked up and me and said, "Kristen, you done good."

My great-grandparents are going on 88 years old. Mamaw and Papaw, as we call them, have been a huge part of my life as far back as I can remember. Every holiday of every year, I have seen them. Not to mention countless visits in the summers just to be with the family. They've always been around. I also knew my great-great-grandmother, Papaw's mother. She died at 94 years old when I was about 6. I still remember her very clearly.

I say all of this because I didn't know until my teen years that this is abnormal. I thought everyone was as close with their families as I was; that everyone had great-grandparents. Now I know just how lucky I am, and how amazing it is that I have the family I have.

Mamaw and Papaw just met their children's children's children's child. Can you even imagine? If Oliver had kids, and they had kids, and then their kids had kids, and then their kids' kids had kids! Five generations are now together in my family again, and my great-grandparents started it all.

I can only hope that my son will get to know his great-great-grandparents as well as I do. His feisty, brave, fireball of a great-great-grandmother, and his quiet, intuitive, hilariously funny great-great-grandfather. Oliver baby, you're one lucky little boy!