Dear Ava

Hi Ava. This is your Aunt. I am your only aunt (that is related to you by blood anyway). Welcome to the world. Unlike other members of our esteemed family, you are large at the start of your life. I am certain your mother (my sister) looks forward to the day that you will exceed her in height. Do not think that you can outsmart your diMINuitive mother when this happens. She can bring men twice her size to their knees.

We are all very excited you are here. I am sorry that I am far away. I will try to make it home as soon as I can. You look a lot like me actually (your eyes! Your cheeks!). Your mother and I have discussed this – at this point your Asian side is dominating your features. You are, of course, cuter than I was at your age. You did not go through that awkward-ugly-newborn stage like so many other babies do, except for that one bloody picture post surgery that your mom sent to me (what was she thinking?). You also did have an advantage by being born via Cesarian. Plus your nose doesn’t look like you were beaten by a boxer like mine did. Be thankful that you will be spared the hours of discussion about whether your nose would ‘pop out’ into something normal. I am thankful to Grandma and Grandpa for my neurosis.

Your parents love you very much. Every few hours I look on your mother’s blog to see if there are new pictures of you. This is a new-fangled technology that lets me feel like I am close to you. Once you are old enough to understand this letter, blogs will be a thing of the past, to be replaced with teleportation or some other thing that has yet to be conceived.

These days it looks like you sleep a lot. You get to wear a number of different hats (literally). Many of them are pink. You are also sweating quite a bit in your photos. You are like me in this respect. I have a tremendous disdain for hats actually, as the sensation of heat on my head is absolutely unbearable to me. Hopefully you will not have this trait, as I think I could have looked better on many days wearing a hat.

I fear that you will have a hot-bloodedness about you. This tends to run on our side of the family. Hopefully you can harness it by turning that energy into something positive, instead of just turning purple like Grandpa does.

Your mom is a really clever person. Don’t let her dupe you into making her bed and then giving her your Rolos. She is a great mom to you already, I think she has been training for you her whole life. She knows how to stretch a dollar and can make a mean cookie. She is going to be hard on you, but only because she has unrelentingly high expectations of you. Do not attempt to derive pleasure by crossing her. She will not let you get away with it (and she has an infinite memory).

I am very much looking forward to seeing you smile. Your mom says that you aren’t due for that for another couple of weeks, but I hope (like she) that you are a bit of an overachiever.

Don’t give your mom and dad too much trouble – you have many more years for those kind of shenanigans.

Be good, and please try to sleep to at least 5.

Love,
Auntie