Babies

April 13th, 2007

My thoughts are full of babies lately. I have (negligently) not yet written about the birth of our daughter, Madeleine Joy Scott, on January 23rd (you’ll notice a conspicuous gap in my blog entries right around that time… it’s amazing how much busier it is going from two children to three!) Madeleine is a very calm baby. She sleeps relatively well at night and has that inexplicable baby charm of showing no outward signs of intelligence but still being fun to hold. And yes, girl babies are cuter than boy babies, though I believe that is entirely psychological, with no basis in physical reality.

The other baby on my mind is our new niece, Faye Elaine Scott, born to my brother Matt and his wife Kim on April 6th. Faye was born prematurely due to Kim’s impending cancer surgery, but seems to be doing well in her comfortable NICU box. Her parents are keeping us updated on their new blog. It’s always a miracle when babies are born so small and yet we are able to care for them and raise them normally. The medical technology developed just within the last 50 years is mind-boggling… and we are the beneficiaries (read this interesting article about the history of neonatal intensive care units). Assuming a similar rate of medical progress will continue into the future, I wonder how people a hundred years from now will look back and pity our own generation, and the illnesses we endured without cure.