Big Brother

On Friday, Smith became a big brother. His sister Laine was born at 6:06 p.m., weighing in at seven pounds and five ounces, and stretching out to 19 inches long. She is beautiful, sweet, and precious.

For months now, Smith has been calling the baby "Flash" after the superhero. Initially, Whitley and I thought this was because he wanted to name her Flash. Cute, right? Telling this to our friends and family was always good for a cheap, polite laugh.

When we found out the baby was a girl, Smith was with us in the doctor's office. The ultrasound nurse told us the baby was a girl, and Smith was enraged. "It's not a girl! It's a boy! It's FLASH!" After this episode, Whitley and I thought, "Okay, so Smith doesn't just want to name the baby Flash, he actually wants a little brother!" Smith, after all, is captivated with all things masculine (punching, baseball, kicking, trucks, fighting, wrestling, dinosaurs and other various meat-eating entities), so we thought it natural that he would prefer a brother to sister. To avoid conflict, Whitley and I decided to find ways to refer to the baby by gender-neutral appellations. Problem solved.

Flash forward (pun intended).

At approximately 7:00 p.m., on February 16, 2007, Smith arrived at the hospital with his grandma Poppie to meet his baby sibling. I was sitting on the couch across the room from the door, holding Laine. Furtively, Smith peeked around the bed at the bundle of blanket in my arms. "Is it Lainey, or is it Flash?" he said quietly. He inched forward, leaning ahead to try and catch a glimpse of what I was actually holding. "Is it Lainey, or is it Flash?" When Smith arrived at my side, he met his sister for the first time. He looked in at her face. The excitement drained from his face and body. He shoulders dropped. He put his head in his hands. He fell, face forward, onto the couch with a soft weep. Whitley and I discovered that Smith didn't want to just call the baby Flash, nor did he just want a little brother. He explained to us, "It's Lainey. It's not (sniff, sniff) Flash. She can't run fast, and she's not wearing a red costume." He wanted, well, Flash.