And baby makes 19

Yesterday afternoon, my brother and sister-in-law welcomed their new daughter, Sophia, into the world. She's a cute little thing, skinny but long, with huge hands and feet and a thatch of dark hair on her head. She has an excellent set of lungs, which she demonstrated eagerly while the doctor poked and prodded her, as we watched through the window of the nursery. The doctor gave us a big thumbs-up, and a nurse put a picture of Sophia's brother and sister into her bassinet.

Sophia's my third niece, and four nephews also preceded her, but each time one of these little people enters the world, I'm just filled with awe and excitement and relief and happiness. Seeing my brother and sister-in-law so overcome with pure joy and exhaustion and gratitude is just amazing. I left the hospital before Sophia's brother and sister arrived to meet her, but I imagine that was a beautiful sight, assuming my four-year-old nephew remembered the "no jumping on mommy for a few days" rule.

Sophia's name hadn't been decided before she was born, first, because they didn't know she would be a girl, and second, because my brother and sister-in-law were divided on which name to pick. When their first daughter was born, she arrived late, and much larger than the doctors had anticipated, so it ended up being an incredibly long, scary, complicated birth. My brother had wanted to name her Lauren; his wife, Julia. And so she was Julia, because after all that my sister-in-law went through, my brother figured the least he could do was let her name the kid.

This time around, it was a scheduled C-section, to prevent the kinds of complications that surrounded Julia's birth, so you'd figure there was a level playing field, and maybe my brother would finally get his Lauren if they had a girl.

Nope. Lost again, and Sophia it is. And he likes the name, as do I, and I think he probably cares less about the name than his wife does, but I can't help feeling a little bad that he keeps getting steamrolled on this. But the other part of me feels like since the kid gets his last name, it's only fair that she get final say on the first name, and I think that the Tangent-Smelmooo household will have to adopt that same rule for any future canine additions.