Some weeks ago my grandson Sean predicted that his mom would have her baby on March 17th.

He also predicted it would be a girl, and he said he wanted her name to be Maia. The "due date" was actually March 12th. Our daughter Rachel and her husband Eric did not want to know in advance what sex the baby would be (which they also did for their first two children, both boys), so we had to wait until yesterday evening to see if Sean was right. And right he was – on both counts! Maia Isobel Fite was born at 7:25 p.m. on March 17th. She weighed in a 9 lbs 13 oz, so she was 5 ounces lighter than her brother Adrian and 5 ounces heavier than Sean. We wondered about Sean’s ability to predict this event. Is he psychic? (We wondered if we couldn’t use Sean to make some extra money by predicting the delivery days for other people, too!) Or is it the luck of the Irish, since I am half Irish and Rachel then is one fourth Irish. Perhaps it just had to be March 17th for that reason.

Since it was a home birth, Oma and Opa did some babysitting for Sean and Adrian yesterday afternoon and evening, and we spent the night at Grandma Sandy’s house. Our first chance to see Maia was this morning, when we came back to the house after breakfast. Sean was anxious to hold his new baby sister, and brother Adrian wanted to know if his mom could now go outside with him and jump on the trampoline again since the baby was no longer in her tummy. When Sean seemed so delighted to hold his baby sister, Opa made the mistake of asking him if he would like his mom to have another baby sometime so he can hold that one, too. For some reason Rachel did not seem all that impressed with that idea today. This afternoon will likely be a "showcase" day as other family members stop by to see Maia.