My sister and her husband just had their third child yesterday.  First let me give you the text exchange announcing the birth of  Esther (yes Esther) Rose (I am not going to try and spell her husbands last name, it has a lot consonants and is polish sounding and starts with a K):

Sis: Esther Rose (my sister didn’t put her husbands last name in the text message either, a lot could be read into that but people already complain this blog is too lengthy) today at 12:21, we are both doing great (just very tired)

Christy (my brother’s wife) She’s so sweet congratulations! (my sister texted a photo I will leave it to the reader’s imagination or you can just look at pictures of your new born babies if you have had a baby, that’s what she looks like). I want to see pictures of the boys meeting her too (I’ll get into that later)

Andy (my brother) Congrats

Me: Looks just like Dave, congratulations.  (in hindsight I should have spaced that out so no one would think I was congratulating them on the fact that their daughter looked like Dave)

Sis: Thanks she definitely looks like Dave.  (since it’s a text I am assuming disappointment when I read the text in my head in my sisters voice, but I can’t be certain)

Jesse (my other brother) Congratulations how big is she?

Sis: 9lbs 13 ounces and 21 inches long (no wonder my sister was tired she had to push a land monster out of her)

Me: Did she come out eating a Big Mac?

In hindsight I should have clarified that, I asked the Big Mac question because she was so big not because she looks like Dave, but Dave has been known to kill a whole lot of Big Macs on a fairly frequent basis so the actual intention behind my question may have not been as clear as I thought it was.  Now back to Esther.  My sister named her first two sons Noah and Elijah.  I told Shirley that I was certain even though they were having a girl it would be a biblical name, I didn’t realize it would be the worst biblical name imaginable.  I am pretty sure  the last person named Ester died sometime during the 1960’s.  Furthermore, what if her kids grow up and don’t love Jesus?  Pretty hard to explain those names away when all your kids have turned their back on Christianity.  On top of all that, I know my mom is kicking herself and saying “why didn’t I think of that?  If only I had given my kids biblical names they would be way better Christians, Brittany could have been a missionary had I gone with Ruth, her Christianity is off the charts all she needed to get to the next level was a non-secular name, Fiddlesticks!”  (my mom actually says fiddlesticks)

Turns out my brother has a biblical name but only because his name starts with a J, my parents were into J’s with their first two but after getting to know Jesse for roughly three years before Andy was born they decided to steer away from the J names.  Interestingly enough, since my sister is 16 years younger than me and my parents felt kind of bad that when I was in high school I had siblings who were 8, 11, and 16 years younger than me so my mom let me pick out my sisters name.  Looking back, Brittany may have not been the best choice.  We have had two Brittany’s that have worked as Secretaries at our firm, Brittany 1 and Brittany 2.  Brittany 1 needed help opening a roll of stamps and couldn’t figure out how to write and send emails.  Not sure how she made it past the interview process but she was gone after 3 weeks.  Brittany 2 on the other hand did know how to not only open a roll of stamps on her own but also how to affix it to an envelope and put it in the mail.  She lasted an entire summer, but got home sick and couldn’t handle the bright lights and big city that is Grand Rapids and moved back home to Elk Rapids.  Am I partially to blame for my Sister’s predicament because I named her?  I can tell you this, if my parents named me or one of my brother’s Randy, Dale, or Carl our lives would have been sent on an entirely different trajectory.

When I speak of my sister’s predicament I probably need to expand a bit.  This past weekend she and super Dave were over with their two kids who are 3 and 1.  Yes, my sister now has three kids all under the age of 4, which is quite depressing if you think about it just on it’s face, but she’s married to super Dave which increases the depressing aspect of it by a power of 10.  You may ask how I dare to write this, am I not afraid my sister will stumble upon or maybe even Dave?  First of all, I don’t think Dave can read, or at least if it doesn’t involve content about crypto currency he wont’ find it or will start reading and lose interest after the first paragraph.  Secondly, there isn’t much Christian about my blog so there is no chance my sister will ever read it.

My Saturday night with Dave was quite remarkable, I have gotten to the point where I try to steer clear of any of his hot button topics out of fear that engaging in an actual conversation with him will make me dumber, but even the most innocuous statement can lead to a highway of misconstrued ideas and conspiracy theories, which is exactly what happened on Saturday night.  I am not sure what the topic of conversation was that led to this particular exchange but this is how it went:

SD “You know about Joan Rivers don’t you?”

Me “No”

SD “Joan Rivers called Michele Obama a tranny and the next day she died during surgery”

Me “I had no idea, those bastards!”

I ended up googling it and it turns out Joan Rivers actually died two weeks after making the comments and was 112 years old.  Regardless, Super Dave had a genuine belief that the Obama’s were directly behind the demise of Joan Rivers.  Prior to the advent of Crypto Currency and even before Dave managed to lock my sister down and then she in turn managed to lock him down by getting pregnant on their honeymoon, he told me he was looking into a Quizno’s franchise.  There were a lot of red flags when it came to Super Dave, but this one was about the size of the State of Texas.  Now that they are married, I don’t know who to feel worse for, Dave to his credit does try to make the occasional joke. My sister was mentioning that Noah likes to watch some cake decorating show ( I wonder if he drinks a glass of milk while he watches? This cake is making me thirsty mom!) and Dave said that’s because it’s all he is allowed to watch to which I responded is it a biblical cake decorating show?

The big question is, was Dave consulted when it came to naming rights for his three children?  My guess is no, because if he had been they would be named Mario, Donkey Kong, and Princess Peach.  It is entirely possible that he had some input in the first two names, but I can’t even imagine Dave being so oblivious that he would green light the name Esther even though his motto when it comes to my sister is “What Britt wants Britt gets” which is why they have three kids and counting.

In closing, Cara’s sister and my sister have both had babies in the past couple of months.  I’ll be honest I don’t even know the name of Cara’s sister’s baby and I actually like her sister, I think it’s Riley but I can’t be sure, I can say whatever it is it’s got to be better than Esther.  But the fact that I don’t know the babies name pretty much sums up how I feel about babies.  Babies are awful, looking at the picture of my new niece made me question how people can like babies that aren’t their own.  I liked my kids when they were babies, sort of, because they were mine and I was obligated to, but there is no way I am liking someone else’s baby, just ask anyone who has seen me around a baby, I never ask to hold a baby and I never pretend to like babies.

I can’t imagine having to go through the entire baby phase again with Parker and Aiden, having kids who can somewhat fend for themselves (I do still have to wipe their butts once in a while when it’s a disaster down there but that’s better for everyone involved) and can be entertained by television while I do what I want to do is complete paradise.  I had a really bad memory this morning, I thought about when my kids were so young that they would wake up at 6 am on a Saturday in the middle of the winter and we would have to get up with them and have absolutely nothing to do.  Now, they just head on downstairs on the weekend turn on the tv and let us sleep in as long as we want.  Granted, my kids getting older means I am getting older, but the trade off is worth it, sure having to pee three times a night because my prostate is growing almost as fast as my back hair is coupled with having  to take stairs one at a time because my knees don’t bend anymore sucks, but not having to try that hard at parenting anymore more than makes up for it.