Saturday 26 March 2011

It is a truth universally acknowledged...

My wonderfully dramatic sister is pregnant. I am going to be an aunt. An Aunt! This fills me with more excitement than all of the episodes of Boardwalk Empire put together. Yes, put together, it really is that exciting! So exciting in fact, I felt the need to put an exclamation mark.

My sister, who I do simply call 'Sister', is a petit 5ft with a tiny frame to match which meant she could get away with buying a child's ticket on any railway until she was 26. Her husband, my brother-in-law, who is for rather juvenile reasons known as 'Dr. Karl'. No, his name is not Karl, nor is he a doctor, he is however, a rather generous 6ft 4 and is built, for want of a nicer expression, like a brick-shit-house. My favourite outburst from my tiny sister was on an evening when little Bob, as we all call the bump, would not sit still and 'Sister' out of no where cried out "Sit. Still. Bob. Why did I have to marry someone with Giant! Man! Sperm!!" It was so unexpected that half a can of coke came torpedoing out of both my mouth or nostrils. It was a rather attractive look, I can tell you. I may try to recreate this look on my next date, it's a sure fire man magnet, for sure. 

My wee niece is due sometime in May (I can't be too accurate here as there is a debate over the due date between the hospital and the midwife), although Sister already looks ready to burst, and the time has come to think about 'Baby Showers'. In true Sister style, she has told everyone else that I am organising it without asking me first. I was told by way of a tweet from a mutual friend informing me we were organising a baby shower for my sister. On further investigation it turned out that I was in fact organising the blessed event and the mutual friend was only helping out here and there wherever needed. Wonderful. If the prospect of four assignments over the Easter period wasn't daunting enough, now I have a baby shower to organise. Have I mentioned that Sister is somewhat of a perfectionist?

I am now having constant permonitions that if this baby shower is not the perfect image Sister has built up in her head then this whole episode will be brought up during every argument and every cross word we ever have from now until we're 90. Sister brought up some irrelevant matter that happened when I was 7 and she was 10 not two months ago; she'll be 30 in November.

And so I am left to wrack my brains to create the perfect baby shower during one of the busiest times of my life. Am I allowed to panic yet? Just a little. However, although Sister is dramatic beyond the realms of normal human behaviour, and although, she may fly off the handle at the flip of a switch, she is my sister, my only sister and I love her dearly. She can always cheer me up when I am down just by uttering the word 'a-wibble' or even 'Bob'. She deserves a wonderful baby shower for my first wee niece and for herself, and so I take on this fairly mammoth task and I take it on almost as excited as I take on being an aunt.

'Baby tasting food' be gone (yes, that's really what was being suggested...), Jane Austen style tea party commense.

I'll keep you all posted...literally.

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