Dear Kaylee,

Well, enough is enough! Today (7/17/13) it will be two whole days since I have seen you:(

I want to snuggle my nose against your little neck and smell my little Kaylee…

This is not weird, as I used to do this with your mommy, too. The sweetest “baby-smell” in the world! Actually, most of us adults do the same thing if we hold babies. Either their necks or their hair, y’all just smell so fresh and clean!

When I was a little boy, your great-grandma used to smell me, and she would make these, “Sniff, sniff” sounds, and then she would say,

“Oh, it’s one of my own. Mommy knows the smell of one of her cubs!”

Great-Grandma Hanson is talking about how mommy bears like to sniff their cubs. And Great-Grandma Hanson had 5 cubs, so that was a lot of sniffing! The other four “cubs” are your great uncles: David, Steve, Jon and Andy. David is married to Shari and Andy is married to Peggy, so they are your great aunts. They are all so excited you have finally arrived!

Great-Grandpa Hanson is excited about you, too. He and Great-Grandma Hanson don’t live near us, so he has to only think of you by looking at your picture.  He lives in a place with lots of other great-grandparents and he says, “My great-granddaughter is the cutest!” He has a big picture of you that he showed to everyone and now it’s on his refrigerator with other pictures I sent. This is so he can remember his first little grandchild, Kaylee, every time he wants to get something to eat!

Great-grandma Hanson is excited and loves you, too! You are deep in her spirit and mind. I told her all about you, but she can’t really talk about you a lot, because she has a hard time remembering things. But, O, how she loved your mommy so very much and she has a shadow in her mind of her special granddaughter, Kristina, so I know that she loves you so very much, too, even if she can’t talk about it. In fact, if she were holding you right now, she might just sniff your neck and say,

“A great-grandma knows her cub!”

Love,

Grandpa