50 things i love...

About being an Aunty.

All this talk about finger babies and pregnancy dreams and Miranda Kerrs breast, has got me all gooey about babies in general. And if there are two babies that i love most in the world, they are my extraordinarily gorgeous niece and nephew. Here is a short lost of some of the things that i love about them.

1. Their faces.
2. The fact they look like most people in my family.
3. When Miss P calls me and yells "Hiiiiiiii" down my ear hole.
4. The bizarre boy related games that Mr C makes me play. (i.e submarine machine guns.)
5. When they look at my paintings and ask "but what IS it?"
6. The hugs.
7. The kisses.
8. The thumping on the floor boards as they rush to the front door when i arrive.
9. When P lets me do her hair and then she looks at mine and says "same"
10. The first time i held them-such different experiences but equally beautiful.
11. Coopers cheekiness.
12. His gentle nature.
13. The quiet way he sometimes observes his world.
14. When he is not participating in the conversation but i can tell he is listening to all that is being said.
15. His love of lollies.
16. His kind heart.
17. Miss P's energy
18. When she pulls a "just let me do what i want and have what i want" face and i think to myself "don't even try it P, i invented that look."
19. When she calls my dad by his first name.
20. When she calls my sister "mummy" and i think "my god, she is her mum."
21. Her thousand different facial expressions.
22. Their relationship with one another.
23. Their pudgy little baby fingers.
24. Every time Cooper gets a hair cut and he become more like a boy. (and less like a baby)
25. Coopers intuition and something he said to me in Vietnam that i cannot think about without crying.
26. The time i slept with them both in a double bed and i realised the kind of parent i am going to be. (one that lets her kids sleep in bed with her because for gods sake it is 3am and it's kinda cosy this way anyway)
27. One day, they will be my childs cousins.
28. "bruvda" (brother) "starple" (purple star) "ladyboy" (best way to get a reaction from their mother.)
29. The way my heart feels when i see them. Hands down, the best feeling ever.
30. They are the glue in our family.
31. I once broke up with a man because my sister said "you deserve to be loved by a boyfriend as much as Cooper loves you." and she was absolutely right.
32. Having children has shown me an entirely different dimension to my sister.
33. I never knew how strong she could be.
34. Lots of people say Cooper is their hero but my sister is mine.
35. Playing pedicures
36. Playing Dora the explorer with special effect voices.
37. I owe all my knowledge about Ben 10 to Cooper.
38. The first time i saw a photo of Miss P, I booked a flight back to Melbourne within 5 minutes.
39. The giddy phone call with my sister when she found out she was having a little girl.
40. The giddy phonecall with my sister when she had, had that little girl.
41. The giddy phone call with that little girl yesterday morning about a princess dress and a family friend that was coming to visit.
42. The moment when Cooper is laughing so much and trying to get the word "more" out.
43. How they get so excited to show me something, be it the new chickens or an empty cupboard.
44. Their defiance and independence which acts as a constant reminder that although they are part of our tight knit family, they are also their own people.
45. Dinners at their house.
46. Knowing that somewhere down the line, in amongst the paint covered bodies and hours in the back yard, my sister got it very, very right.
47. Cooper taught me to slow down and sit still.
48. Pepper helped me find my laugh again.
49. Having my heart triple in size when they came into the world.
50. Everything

I'm sure that it is the same for everyone. That love that exists beyond any word in the English language.

The funny thing is, when i was going through grief (what a terrifically simple way to encompass those horrible two years) I wondered how people coped with life. i figured that at some stage, everyone goes through a really shit thing happening. How are we all still walking around and functioning? How are we all not complete wrecks, crying in the corner? And it's a cliche but the answer really is love. We all carry around grief and pain and loss on our shoulders, but if we also carry love in our heart, it's not nearly as heavy.