A good start, but what does the future hold?

One baby is granddaughter Rylin on the day of her birth 2-1/2 years ago. The other is granddaughter Ashlyn on the day of her birth this past Monday, May 20. They almost could be twins! Photos by Grandpa Chuck

Whew!

It has been a whirlwind of a week since the arrival of little Ashlyn Marie last Sunday, May 20, to the Kurtz and Krejci families. Ashlyn, who came into the world at 7:47 a.m., weighing 6 pounds, 14 ounces and measuring 19 inches, is the spitting image of her 2-1/2-year-old big sister Rylin. It’s almost as if Rylin has been cloned with one exception.

Rylin was anything but a quiet baby. She enjoyed exercising her lungs…and she was good at it, too.

Ashlyn, so far, has been one of the most quiet babies I’ve been around. She enjoys her sleep time and only cries — whimpers really — when she’s hungry and she’ll get upset when someone wakes her up to change her diaper or clothes.

Mom (Heather) and dad (Justin) are doing fine — tired but fine.

And Rylin?

Big sister Rylin holding and examining her baby sister for the first time.

She was pretty excited to see her baby sister for the first time last Sunday afternoon. Her excitement turned to a gentle calm as she peered for the first time down at this tiny person wrapped tightly in a blanket and held by her Nana. They looked at her tiny feet and counted her toes. She slowly and carefully touched Ashlyn’s forehead and then stepped back and laughed.

Then, with the help of Mee-moo, Rylin held her baby sister for the first time. She stared and touched Ashlyn, looked at her hair, studied her nose and mouth. She bent down and kissed her sister on the forehead.

It was a tender moment and then Rylin was done. And as Ashlyn slept while being passed from one person to another, Rylin began playing, dancing, running in circles, and singing and talking in her normal boisterous tone, which I’m sure is a direct result from her lung-exercising infant days!

Mom and dad brought Ashlyn home Tuesday afternoon and sister Rylin, thus far, has been quite the helper and showing no signs of sibling jealously in trying to get more “mom” time. Mom and dad seem to have done a good job in preparing Rylin for her big-sister role.

Last night, I was able to hold Ashlyn while mom spent some time with Rylin eating dinner and giving her a bath.

Ashlyn is so little. I have four kids and five grandkids and I don’t think I’ll ever get over the feeling of holding a newborn in my arms. And every time I wonder about the world they will be growing up in and what kind of economic and environmental mess we are leaving our children.

I think it’s scary. I think it’s a tragedy. I think about the problems we, as a society and as a people, have caused and allow to continue without doing anything to correct them for future generations.

As I look down at Ashlyn on my chest, as I watch Rylin playing in the middle of the livingroom floor, as I think about my other grandchildren Alexandra, Dylan and Carys, all I can think about is how my generation, the hippy-protest-change-the-world-babyboomers that grew up in the ’60s, seems to have destroyed the futures of our grandchildren. We’ve done more to destroy the environment than improve it. We’ve done more to destroy the middle class than expand it. We’ve allowed the rich to get richer at the expense of the ever-growing population of the poor. And we keep sending cookie-cutter politicians to Washington who do more for themselves and their rich supporters than they do for this country and its people.

We could have done better.

We should have done better.

I hold my grandchildren in my arms. I rock them, read them books, and tell them stories. We sing songs, we make up songs to sing. We laugh and we play.

But I can’t help but to worry.