Over the weekend I went to see my parents and sister, which was really nice because A) I don't do it nearly often enough and B)my little sister Alicia is pregnant with her first child, and it was really nice to see how she was holding up. The family seemed fine and all, so I was really happy to see them, but what astonished me was looking at my sister, seven months pregnant, and looking as happy as she could be.
(Check out the new link "The Story of Boo" over at the right to visit her blog.) Psst -- Alicia, re your July 23 entry, the whole "eight glasses of water a day" thing has been dramatically overplayed, and few true experts in proper nutrition recommend that much water every day. But I digress.
Getting to see my sister for only the first or second time since the beginning of her pregnancy was a really fascinating experience. Y'see, I was always the boring, good little nerdy kid who followed the rules and got in trouble only for being too antisocial to those around me. Alicia, well, she wasn't by any means a "wild child", but she was certainly more social than me, had more friends, and in general tended to push her boundaries a lot more. A year ago, I was living a life of sitting at my computer and reading messages on talk.origins, while she was out having adventures with her friends and basically raising a little hell -- in other words, exactly what you'd expect a hot young twenty-three year old blonde to be doing.
So when she found out that she'd accidentally gotten pregnant, while my first reaction was to be happy for her and to wish her the best, part of me, the part that I really don't like because it's not a very polite person, worried about the welfare of the child, whether or not Alicia would have the maturity to pull it off.
(No disrespect to Alicia here, as I know I'm sure as fuck not ready to be a father, and I'd probably end up seriously fucking the kid up if he was left with me for a week or two. I have trouble keeping my two cats fed and their litter cleaned, so a son or daughter would be way more work than I was ready for.)
But it turns out that my little baby sister, who part of me still insists is such a little girl, is actually maturing and preparing for impending motherhood right before my eyes. I was sitting on the couch in the living room where I grew up and watching her sit in a nearby rocking chair -- she had her eyes half closed and was rocking gently in the chair, all the while holding her stomach gently in her arms and looking for all the world like she was simply listening to a far-off song that only she could hear. Which, really, probably isn't all that far from the truth.
I'm not a very good brother. I'm distant and antisocial and difficult and self-centered to a fault. But seeing her with the love and affection she feels for that baby makes me realize that she's grown up while I wasn't looking, and is a wonderful person whom I'd like to have the opportunity to spend some more time with. The prospect of being an uncle soon is just icing on the cake.
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