Rockets

Rockets

Wednesday 14 December 2011

Family Matters

I try to be a good Uncle.  I have a nephew named Jaspar and a niece named Ivy.  Both are beautiful children but are very hard to control.  Jaspar is 5, Ivy is 4.  They bounce off each other like oil and water and its hard to control them when they're together.  Alone is a different story.

Jaspar loves building with Lego, something I can join in with him very easily seeing as I still build!  He also loves superheros and making up games to play.  Whenever we have the chance, we use our imaginations to make the best adventures possible inside my Sister's little house.  He draws a lot, is obsessed with cars and can't wait until Christmas.  I want to be a fun Uncle for him, someone who will take him out bike riding when he's old enough as well as other boyish adventures.

Ivy is a very different story.  She's the most princess-like little girl I've ever met.  Princesses, bears, kitties, tea sets...  It's a lot harder to play games she likes when Jaspar is around as he likes to explode around and play rough while Ivy is having a conversation between Smurf stuffies and a dog stuffy.  When I'm alone with her I pick her up and whirl her around.  I tickle her more than Jaspar (who gets "mad" when tickled too much) and we have our little adventures.  I just usually chase her around as playing with her stuffies with her is hard.  She has all these little rules about how we're supposed to talk to each other and its hard to keep track with her.

My sister is a busy person with a lot of things happening.  Primarily she takes care of the kids, often at the usually at the expense of things she would like to do.  She's very reluctant to call in a babysitter when our mom isn't around.  She lives in a house literally right across from my home with my parents so visiting is very easy.

My sister is 12 years older than me so she's 32 and I'm 20.  It was always a harmonious relationship between siblings and I've always considered her my second mom, the younger and funner mom!  She was the one who introduced me to video games, starting with the SNES of our household.  She was the one who got me started into RPG's after I had been gaming for a few years.  She sparked my interest in Manga and Anime (inadvertently) by letting me play a fighter called Ranma 1/2 and explaining where the characters came from.  Seeing her in pain is something I cannot take lying down but this is a line of thought for another post...

My relationship with my dad has always been a difficult one.  He is incredibly busy as he juggles a career as a professional Jazz musician, music teacher, community band leader and parent daily.  From him I inherited my love of reading and music but it came at a cost.  He expected a lot from me as a kid and now as an adult (although he is less vocal about it now as I'm old enough to not need his expectations as my motivation).  He pushed me into 5 unhappy years of Piano, something I hated from day one.  That led to the most violent teenage outbursts of my short life thus far...  As a trumpet player learning from your professional trumpet player father...  You feel inadequate.  I can elaborate more on this later.  We love each other to be sure but dad is always, and I suspect always will be, hard to impress.

My mom calls me her baby boy, much to my chagrin.  She's not an overbearing mother but she always makes sure to know what I'm up to.  She is a great cook, makes amazing jams and salsa and is probably the moral center of my life.  She's far more religious than I am but she isn't pushy about it.  She disapproves of me being on computers or gaming and thinks I'm too lazy for my own good.  This may be true but I'm not going to change my views on video gaming just because she thinks they're a waste of time.  Still, we love each other a great deal.

These have been thoughts about my immediate family.  I could tell you stories about my Uncles and Aunts but I think I'll conclude here for now.  Just felt a need to ramble a bit and hey, that's the title of the blog isn't it?

-Red

3 comments:

  1. A couple of grammatical errors and/or typos keep this from being a great piece.

    8/10.

    =p

    PS: I'm not going to write a similar piece, as I don't want my thoughts on my family going up on the web.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I don't really proof my "work" here. But I'm being rated?

    Shit.

    ReplyDelete