Last night was the kind of night where I lay awake making myself feel sad about how awful it would be if for some reason we lost all the photos we had of the children. Productive! Then I fell into a headcold kind of sleep and dreamed that I was arrested and put in jail because I saw a man in his underwear.
One of the best presents I got for Christmas was the gift of anticipation: my brother and sister-in-law gave me a gift certificate for airplane travel. A trip to see Niestle! …And my brother and sister-in-law and other sister-in-law.
Speaking of which: what relation is my sister-in-law’s sister to me? I think the official answer is “She’s your sister-in-law’s sister,” but I think that’s kind of BULKY. I suppose I could call her by her NAME. But I’d like to also call her my sister-in-law, as I did in the paragraph above. I don’t have any sisters, and it would please me greatly to have some lawfully-contracted sisters. I think “sister” is a very pretty word.
Elizabeth, age 4 and not privy to discussions about family planning, said to me out of the blue the other day, “If you want another girl, you should have one.” Me: “…!”
Rob, age 10, after seeing Niestle for the first time this Christmas, said, “I think we should have another baby. I forgot how cute they are.”
I think, though, that I have finally come to terms with the idea of not having more babies, to the point that I am looking forward to some aspects of it. It helps that Henry is such a stinker. He is the stinkeriest of all my children. With sparkling eyes and merry mouth he will fling a box of toys at the Christmas tree, climb on the counter and plug in the coffee pot so that it makes a terrible singed smell, step in the cat water, step on an open book so that the pages crinkle and rip out, color on the walls, stuff a handful of someone else’s candy into his mouth and run away, sneak into the bathroom and repeatedly flush the toilet, climb into his brother’s upper bunk and then fall out.
Sadly for his future character, we all think he’s hilarious and adorable.
We just create titles for people however we want. Our cousin’s kids are still cousins to our kid and not second cousins or cousins-once-removed or TOO COMPLICATED, OMG. So, I think calling your SIL’s sister YOUR SIL sounds just about right to me.
It’s too tough to be cross at them when they are that cute, isn’t it? He really is adorable, it’s not just because he’s yours that you think that. He’s got a little sparkle in those eyes, you know?
I stay awake at night trying to imagine what will happen if I died, because DH is loving but helpless with the kids. If you ever get bored with the lost-picture scenario, you should try that one. It will keep you up forever, because there are so many ways it could go, each one worse and worse.
I have a pretty large blended family, so once I explain who’s who, I stick with names.
And, oh man, Henry IS adorable.
Everyone should have a Henry! I do; she’s the only girl and the youngest and the last! That’s why she’s here!
If you like your SIL’s sister then you can claim her any way you want. I have 5 SILs but I only like 3 of them. I’ll have a new one this summer, I wonder which side she’ll join…
Henry and my youngest = BFF…you know, if they lived in the same zip code.
Hopefully the newest addition will be calm and sweet. Only one stinker per family, right?
Right???
OH. That photo of him in his high chair is PRICELESS. He is hilarious and adorable. As stinkers tend to be.
I have been having trouble IDing my sister-in-law’s husband. He’s my husband’s brother-in-law, but if I call him my brother-in-law I feel that I am implying that he’s my sister’s husband (when in fact he and my sister have never even met).
He reminds me so much of J. The haircut, the big brown eyes, the “I’m such a little pain in the ass but I’m cute so you laugh”-ness…. *squee*
We also laugh and delight in all the horrible things Marin does. I call it the gift of CHILLING OUT. With our first, we would have been sure that allowing this behavior or that would have meant we were HORRIBLE parents. Now, we realize we can just enjoy her. However, I too worry about her future character. Will getting away with being a little turkey simply because you have an adorable dimple make you an obnoxious adult to be around?
I guess time will tell!
he’s very cute. one stinker per family, right?
Aww cute. That first paragraph cracked me up. Sometimes I start thinking about what life would be like if my husband died and then I think boy oh boy do I hope we have kids first if that happens. Then I end up crying, and hastily wiping away tears before he looks over. I mean, what the hell is wrong with me? Seriously.
I think the cute ones are the stinkers. Now that we are done with having babies, I ordered Christmas stockings with our names on them. (super cheap at jc penney after Christmas)
haha! Henry and C would be a tornado together. We lovingly call C “The Destroyer” if that gives you any clue. lol
He is so stinkery that having another took some serious convincing.
So CUTE.
I pray regularly that if one of us has to die while the children are young it is my husband because he is completely useless. I mean, he loves ’em to death but his cooking repertoire is grilled cheese and spaghetti. The idea of me dying first haunts me.
Oh, and I keep telling my son when he does stinkery things that I’m going to put him in baby jail (the pack & play), but I’ve decided I might be setting him up for a future in a real prison if I continue this. So I’m gonna stop.
Oh that is one cute babe.
Sometimes I obsessively rehash uncomfortable social situations in my head and think of all the things I should have said….
I think often about my William that God made him so super cute for a reason. He’d spend half his day out on the porch if he wasn’t… I know, that’s awful. I’m kidding. Kinda.
I think you should call her your Other-in-Law!
Oh! Henry’s soft hair! He’s so, so cute. Wish he could come by and play with Niestle.
OMG look at the Henry feets! So cute!
My two year old just giggled over the pics of your Henry. She kept pointing to his foot picture and saying, “He so Funny!”
Last year I wrote a lot on my blog about how we were finally done with babies. Then we learned that it is not enough for me to just write about it, we have to actually DO something about it, and here I am, a year later, holding baby #3… Either the lesson is be careful what I toss out to the Universe, or we really suck at contraception.
Oh MY. We also try not to laugh when my daughter does something so cute and yet SO NAUGHTY. IT’S HARD! (and she’s our first, so we are destined to have a household of stinkers. Le Sigh).
Because he is, of course! He’s the last, so you must spoil him rotten!
Your description of Henry reminds me so much of my baby brother! (Ten years younger than me… not such a baby now, so don’t tell him I called him that.) We often said that he ensured his position as The Last Child by being such a stinker. Also that it was a good thing for him that he was so impossibly cute, or he’d have been chucked out a window. Though it didn’t really help his character that we (the older siblings) invented games like “Baby Prince,” where we’d tuck him into a laundry basket filled with cushions and cater to his every whim.
The point of this story, though, is that he turned out great. Still has that mischievous charm and a sense of entitlement up to the moon (at least compared to the rest of us, who are all very accomodating), but a really solid character and a good head on his shoulders. It’ll be fun to see what your Henry is like as he grows up.
My brother-in-law’s sister (sister of my sister’s husband) and I call each other “sister-in-law-in-law.” Or, now that we share a niece and nephew, I opt for “the favorite aunt” and the “other aunt.”
I did not ever ever think I would feel “done,” but somehow, after my fourth was born in May, I just feel it. It feels mostly like I will lose my mind if I have another, and also like “Ohmygosh, when THIS one is 8 [age of my oldest], I will not ever have to get ANYONE a sippy cup of water!”
Whoo, boy. That picture of Henry with his feet up on the high chair tray made me LAUGH AND LAUGH.
How cute is he. I have a stinker, too, as you know and sometimes it’s so hard not to laugh. And other times, it’s so hard not to CRY AND CRYYYY.
Yes well I believe that my toddler’s relative lake of stinkerhood is just God/karma/the universe playing a terrible practical joke on me. It makes me want to have two or three more babies, and I’m sure they’ll all be stinkers.
Well, he *is* hilarious and adorable, so it’s perfectly understandable why you would think that!!!