Birth and Blight

This year's Labour Day was well-named in every sense of the word (I can only count two senses), both having to do with babies of some sort.

First, there was news of the arrival of a beautiful baby girl, who just so happens to be part of my family. My first thoughts upon seeing her were, "You're amazing. You're beautiful. I'm already so in love with you and I've known you for 30 seconds." While I've always imagined that being a parent would be an incredible experience, knowing what it feels like to be just an aunt, I can't even imagine how overwhelmingly wonderful a child must be to a parent.

Family bonds are amazing things, and they extend beyond just blood ties and traditional notions of family. There's been one other time I've felt this way, and while there is no blood connection, I'm still called Auntie in the relationship. Aunthood is filled with a mix of excitement for new life, nervousness about loving the child well and relief that, more often than not, you can hand the child off when they're crying or need discipline (or is that just wishful thinking?). What I don't get is why association with the same group of people inspires such instant love?  Why don't I feel that for, say, my co-workers' babies? Or the crying baby in the pew behind me at church? Or even many of my other friends' babies?

My brief introduction to the new love of my life was sadly followed by the funeral of my other babies, my tomatoes. All 6 of my sprawling, productive tomato plants were stricken by something that sounds like it came right out of the Dark Ages: Blight. May as well just call it the Plague or Black Death.

My mother and I were able to salvage a box of green tomatoes in the hope that they will ripen, but other than these refugee tomatoes, the whole lot of them went directly to the dump before the plague takes over the whole garden. Our plans for homemade salsa, tomato paste, tomato sauce, etc. have been put on hold as we brainstorm our options. The consolation to this particular labour was that the labour that produced my niece resulted in far more joy than the sadness brought about by my lost tomatoes. Had I lost my tomatoes on an otherwise uneventful Labour Day, I would probably still be wallowing in grief (truthfully, I'm wallowing a little).