Wednesday, August 16, 2006
On becoming an uncle
Fatherhood seems less and less likely for me in this life, but uncledom is not too many months away. My brother Scott(aka 'Lil Bro) and his wife Laura(aka Sis-in-Law aka The SIL) are expecting twins, the due date being sometime in late January 2007. I couldn't be happier for them, as they have had more than their fair share of trials and tribulations in making this dream a reality.
With 'Lil Bro being overseas during 2003 and again in 2005, they haven't had a lot of time together in the past three and an half years. Thankfully, he is now in a non-deployable unit stationed in Fort Knox, Kentucky, which means no distractions or added stresses for either of them and everyone will be home for the duration. Perhaps things do happen for a reason.
The SIL is due the 23rd of January, which puts the babies' birthday right in the middle of the Super Bowl hype extravaganza. Hopefully there won't be any mid-party Super Bowl drama, though it would make an interesting story. It has been a long journey for the two of them and I sincerely hope(pray?) that everything is happy and healthy from this point forward.
Lil Bro and The SIL met while they were still in high school. We all worked for Publix Supermarkets at the time and if memory serves, the two of them originally met while working at the store. Don't quote me on that, but that's how I'm remembering things at the moment.
Anyway, a bunch of happy-happy-joy-joy later and they both had graduated high school. Around the time I was 20, which puts them both squarely in the 18 to 19 area, we moved into a nearby condo complex as roommates. My now infamous tolerance started there, as I christened the downstairs half bath with voluminous amounts of vomiting the night I commenced my 21st year of existence. It was the first of what would be many nights of drunken merriment in the confines of that little condominium.
Fast forward a couple of years and I had partied myself broke, Lil Bro and The SIL took another Eric(Sideshow) as a roommate and I moved back home to save money, dig out of debt and get my proverbial shit in order. Within two years my former roommates were married, had sold the condo and followed me home. They were in the process of finding a house to purchase when 9/11 changed everything.
My personal opinion is that Lil Bro was searching for direction and inspiration at the time. He found it in the form of military service and announced his intention to join the Army shortly after the horrors of 9/11 had started marching this country toward war. Needless to say, most of the family received the news a little less gracefully than one would have hoped. Regardless, everyone adjusted, Lil Bro enlisted and a year or so after boot camp, he was on his way to Iraq...Ramadi to be exact. That was March 2003. He came home safe and sound for Thanksgiving that year, complete with local news coverage of the fam at the airport and would return home, this time to Fort Carson, Colorado, in February 2004.
Obviously having children became a priority, as things were not calming down overseas and Lil Bro's regiment was in the deployment rotation. Alas, it was not to be and Lil Bro went back to the desert in early 2004 where he did another year of dirt duty, this time in Tal Afar. Things went very well there, with his regiment receiving several letters of thanks and recognition from the local Iraqi political representatives. He would once again come home safe and sound. That was approximately six months ago now, which is to say he and The SIL didn't waste any time getting down to the business of making babies.
Skip the boring details, and here we are in the present. Uncledom will suit me just fine, because I can't imagine there is anyone out there who would want to raise children with the likes of me and I have yet to find a woman I would dream of impregnating. I believe parenthood will be good to Lil Bro and The SIL, as they are more than ready. They've actually been married for 6 years this October, which is saying something in this day and age. They have a beautiful new home in Kentucky sitting on a solid acre of land...the sort of thing millionaires are made of here.
My preference? Nephews, of course! :D More important is that the babies and mom make it through in perfect health. So far, everyone has good reason to be optimistic and honestly, I am nothing short of stoked at the idea. Where 2006 has turned out to be a year of hard lessons learned, I am already hoping 2007 will be a year of positive karmic pay off for soldiering through the darkness. For Lil Bro and The SIL, it will be the most magical moment of their lives.
This is going to be fun. :)
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that really is a heartwarming story... and a good read. your nicknames amuse me.
:)
What wonderful news! Please tell them congratulations from me. It seems like just yesterday we were all at Publix. Which reminds me, I'm still looking for pics I took of your haunted house you painted. Remember that?
You'll be a fantastic uncle. I love being "Aunt Paulie" to my half Okinawan niece and nephew. They are the sweetest kids. If I could be guaranteed my offspring would turn out as pleasant and wonderful as them I would probably have kids. Definitely not ready now though with the current situation. I figured I'll either have a child in my mid-30s or never.
Glad the nicknames are going over well. I need to proofread these posts before filing them! Keep finding typos and mistakes after the fact. :)
And those days at Publix seem to be a long time ago now. I'm already known as Uncle Erik to my buddy's (The Chancellor, image coming soon)two daughters, but it will nice to have it be official. Besides that, the idea of having twins in the family is so fecking cool!
The kids thing is complicated for me. It's one of those situations where you're sure you'd make a great parent, but at some point you start questioning the viability of raising a child in this place and time, especially at my age. I hear you on the uncertainty thing, believe me!
That's exactly what I was going to write (raising a child in this society). But I went on this diatribe and decided to erase it because it's your comment box and not my blog. I gotta keep remembering that. :)
What stemmed it was watching a Naked Science episode last night on bullets. It just disturbed me to no end. I think they said there were approx. 200 million guns in the U.S. Plus they are developing new bullet technology that will tear apart anything on impact, and guide itself to the target. I don't know, it just makes me really ill to think about it.
There are so many societal concerns, it seems almost unimaginable that the decent exceptions can continue to combat the apathy and indifference for much longer. What really bothers me is that we live in this "advanced" civilization, but all of the ancient problems still plague us. Thousands of years of recorded human history and our species is still learning the same old lessons? Raisings decent children in this superficial, shallow, violent and frivolous culture has to be incredibly hard.
I guess that's not the most optimistic position to take, but then I haven't ever been optimistic about society's chances in general. History proves that society's universally fail. Given the current economic, political and moral state of America, it would seem that history is set to repeat itself...eventually.
Don't worry Uncle Erik, you won't have to wait much longer to find out the sex of the babies...assuming they are cooperating on Friday. I think it's going to be a boy and a girl, but what do I know.
Awesome! :) A boy and a girl would definitely work. You could have all the joys of a daughter with a brother around to kick her boyfriends' asses down the road. Perfect balance. ;)