Family (a four person word)

Jack is in love with his sister.  I can remember feeling that exact sentiment...when they are little and can't talk, or steal (and ruin) your stuff, or rat you out to Mom and Dad.  When they let you hold them and smile at you as opposed to accusing you of hitting them when you're in the next room, or making you watch the My Little Pony movie 269 times, OR getting out of their bed in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve only to vomit the lovely combination of fudge and olives all over your bed (with you in it).  No, all of those things are in Jack's future!  For right now he is content to occasionally hold his sister, to talk to her constantly, and to squeeze her chubby cheeks.  Soon enough he will be complaining about her, and I will empathize, the way that my father did with me, about the pains of having a younger sibling, and attempt to comfort him with the same notion my dad tried: that imitation is the highest form of flattery.  And Jack will undoubtedly say to me what I said to my father, which is... "DON'T GIVE ME THAT BOLOGNA, and WHEN CAN WE GET RID OF HER?"

But when he gets older he will be so glad to have someone who understands exactly what it was like to have parents like us, good and bad.  Someone who he can commiserate with about how we tortured them, and who will agree that we no longer behave like "Mom and Dad" but like two batshit-crazy old people who dress ridiculously and like to embarrass them in front of people that they're trying to impress.  They will watch each other's kids, pay our nursing home bills, and have us over on the holidays to tell funny, exaggerated stories of how ridiculous it was to grow up together under this roof.  And we will yell, "WHAT?" and make them repeat themselves, give them unsolicited parenting advice, and refuse to take our Beano.  I can't wait.

These are all of the things that I think about when I am lying in bed listening to Dan snore, Jack snore, and Sydney do her semi-conscious mating-shed bit.  I remind myself that building a family is like building a house, brick by brick, day by day, into a place that you can live and feel loved forever.  And also have someone painstakingly record your childhood on the internet.  Forever.