Swarming like cicadas.

Five generations crowded into Auntie Marj's lovely bedroom today, cooing a tiny lady in a yellow striped onesie on a bed. Maiya, the most beautiful girl in the world worked and worked and worked her mouth and her hands, her eyes fluttering open once and a while encouraging us to break into song and gales of laughter with our identical sets of family hands clutching the hearts in our chests; five wombs ranging from early 20's to late 70's fluttering right along with her. I was filled with hope and want, and the mamas and grandmamas and great-grandmamas were filled with pride and nostalgia. Five generations of cicadas with unseen wings. A room of whirring women around the Queen bee.

At one point my Grandma, my mama and myself bent over the new queen of the family court, undressing and inspecting. She lay, mellow, as we looked at her tummy and I kissed the palms of her hands a hundred times and smelling the back of her neck. Her hands, those hands. This kid is undoing me and I love her for it. I want. I can barely wait to be the calm one in the living room while the vultures in my family grab and hoard my own children in quiet rooms to undress and inspect my good work. Good work Phams, good work Reimers. You make regal babies.

My sincere apologies for writing another entry about babies.
This is Maiya.