My Brother In Law, My Nephew, and a Conversation About Babies and Pot Roast...

From the very beginning my sister had been extremely supportive of my little blog. She has posted it on her Facebook numerous times and talked about my site on her blog. Therefore, it is only fair that I write a special and loving post about her... better halves, meaning my brother in law and nephew.

For me, wanting a brother started when I was in 9th grade. But I didn’t want a little brother. (Please I’m the baby in the family, Hell no I didn’t want a baby brother.) I started High School envious of all my friends who had older brothers in High School as well. It honestly never occurred to me to just wish my sister had been a little younger so she would have been in school with me, because I wasn’t close with my sister at all. No, it had to be a big brother. A big brother to scare all my boyfriends. A big brother to introduce me to hot upper classmen. A big brother to always be looking out for his adorable little sister. Since I knew I would never get the big brother I wanted, the next best thing would be Sister dating a really cool guy.

Sister never dated really cool guys…

When I was I Middle School and Sister was in High School she had the dorkiest guy friends and boyfriends. (At least I thought so.) They all thought they were the coolest until my dad came home and then they would knock on my bedroom door and ask me to go get them snacks and drinks from the kitchen because (and I quote), “I don’t want to have to walk past your dad.”

In college she dated Robert who I HATED! Because Sister was in college, Robert only had a few days over the weekend to make an impression, and he did… a bad one. Robert made the mistake of making fun of me in front of my boyfriend. You don’t make fun of 15 year old girls in front of their boyfriends! I was embarrassed and I will never forget Robert Whatever His Last Name Is.

Then Sister dated Joey who I learned all about when she came to Germany with us the summer we moved over there. She spent the summer all pining around for some dude named Joey, while I secretly wanted to slap her because at least she got to go home, back to Texas, at the end of the summer and I had to stay in Germany with our evil, evil parents who ruined my life by making me move half way around the world and really far away from Wesley (the love of my 15 year old life – same boyfriend Robert made fun of me in front of). Sister’s relationship with Joey was, for the most part, while we lived in Germany so we didn’t get to know him very well. While they were dating my sister’s hair got blonder and blonder and then he told her to lose some weight so I pretty much hated him before I even met him, but then I actually met him and then I really didn’t like him. Joey and Sister came to visit us in Germany the summer after we moved there and OMG was that guy a douche bag. He sucked up to my parents and didn’t say five words to me the whole time he was staying in our house. I was so confused why my sister was so in love with this tool.

But they broke up, thank God, and she quickly started dating Brother in Law and everything turned out A-Okay. Although Brother in Law didn’t make the best first impression with our family I liked him right away. He was brass, funny, and didn’t hold back in front of me or my parents. He was just himself and that was extremely refreshing from Dr. Tool Joey. I can honestly say that seeing my sister marry Brother in Law opened my eyes to the fact that I was, at the time, kinda dating my version of Joey and I didn’t want to marry and be stuck with My Joey. I love hanging out with Brother in Law just as much as I love hanging out with my sister. He is definitely part of the reason I wished they lived closer to me. On top of just being a cool guy, he also loves my sister unconditionally.

The other amazing man in my sister’s life is my Nephew, Mouse. (I only call him Mouse here, because he was nicknamed this just after birth as evidently he squeaked like a Mouse.) It is no secret that I don’t really like kids and I’ve never wanted to be a mother. Wow, that sounds really harsh… let me restate that last sentence. I like kids just fine. I just don’t know how to interact with them. I was the youngest in my family and because we grew up so far away from family I never hung around my younger cousins when they were babies. I just don’t have experience with young kids. Plus kids are so awkward sometimes. I mean the thought of spending a prolonged amount of time in an elementary or middle school really creeps me out. I just can’t handle that type of awkwardness. Sometimes I wonder how I was ever a kid to begin with.

People usually don’t understand me not wanting kids. When I say that most people respond with, “Oh, well one day you will want them.” You know what people, you’re right. Someday I might want kids. One day my maternal clock might start ticking and I’ll get all knocked up by the first male I see and then I’ll have ten kids and I’ll look back on my life now and think, “Wow that random person I met when I was 25 was right, I did want kids. I hope I can find them to tell them they were right and I was wrong.” But hear me out. I don’t want kids, so I tell people I don’t want kids. People tell me in a few years I will want kids. Okay well I don’t want pot roast right now and although I might want it in a few hours or days or months, I don’t make that clarification when I say I don’t want it…

Random Person: “Hey Lemon Lady, Do you want some pot roast?”

Me: “Um, no thanks. I don’t want pot roast.”

Random Person: “Seriously? Everyone wants pot roast.”

Me: “Um, well… I just don’t want any, sorry.”

Random Person: “You know someday you will want pot roast. You just wait and see. You’ll be begging for some hot piece of American male to give you some pot roast… give you lots of pot roast…”

So, as much as I don’t want kids (yes everyone, right now I don’t want kids) and as much as I kinda don’t know what to do around them, I absolutely LOVE my nephew. And, my loves grows every time I see him because he can finally do stuff. I mean yeah I loved him as a baby, but now that he is 2 and a half and can do more than just lay there and drool, the kid is so cool. I love watching him play. You can see his mind at work making up stories in his head and acting them out with his cars and trucks. I love watching my sister be a mom. She is so patient with him and I know she loves reading to him as much as he loves curling up in her lap listening. I love watching my parents be grandparents. My dad is adorable calling to Mouse to see the deer in the back yard or because there is a large truck on TV. Mouse calls my mom “RamRaw” because he can’t say grandma yet and she scoops him up for the biggest hugs. But most of all I love it when my nephew calls my name. He can’t quite pronounce it yet, but that makes it all the better. It’s so cool to hear this tiny little person express so much in one word.

Some photos of Mouse…






And one of him and my sister...


Oh, and nephew number two will be here in March.