Partum Me?! Welcome to the family, Charlie!

Well, I have settled back into work and Charlie is getting used to being separated from me during the day.  After each weekend, he still cries for me on the first day that I’m in the office, but he’s always happy to see me when I come home.  For the next week, he’s still at home with his dad before starting daycare next Monday.  I guess we know what the topic of next week’s post will be!

This week is a short one, as Monday was a holiday and we depart on Friday for a weekend with my family in northwest NJ.  I call them my family even though they are not my blood-relatives.  My parents divorced when I was a toddler and my mother remarried when I was in grade school.  Through that marriage I gained a brother, a grandmother, a slew of aunts, uncles, and cousins…and a dad.  He is the person that raised me, coached my middle school basketball team, attended band and choir concerts, came to every graduation, and walked me down the aisle at my wedding.  I have a fine relationship with my biological father, especially since my 15-year-old brother lives with him, but even he will admit that he wasn’t around as much as he could have been.  As a result, I rarely saw my paternal family and have never felt as connected to them as I do to the cousins I have on my mother’s side and with my “adopted” family. 

My dad’s extended family owns a 2,000 acre parcel of land in northwest NJ.  There is a small lake on the property and about a dozen houses, all owned by family members.  After my parents married, I spent almost every weekend of every summer at “The Lake,” going on jeep rides, swimming, canoeing, or taking over my aunt’s house to watch Goonies since our house didn’t have a VCR.  Most of the time, my brother was my sidekick, but we also had a handful of cousins who were around our age and would partake in adventures with us.  Usually our first hours each weekend were spent surveying who was on the property and who wasn’t.  But every summer, on the second Saturday of July, we have an annual family dinner and it’s pretty much a guarantee that the majority of our relatives will be there.  Now that almost all of my generation is “of age,” we even have our own tradition of meeting up around a campfire after the dinner is over to catch up without the grown-ups around. 

Family Weekend is by far my favorite two days of the entire year, and this year, Charlie will get to enjoy it as well.  If there is one group of our family members that I wish to have the most influence on Charlie, it is this one.  And it’s funny that I feel that way, considering that my husband and I are diehard liberals while my dad’s side of the family are NRA-card-carrying Republicans.  We don’t agree on most things political and social, but underneath those differences is a true love of family, a sense of morality, and a Golden Rule mentality that I wish to see in Charlie as he gets older.  This side of my family is diverse in its own way – we have academics, artists, and photographers as well as investment bankers, lawyers, and business people.  They’ve maintained the tradition of this family property for over 100 years and I see my generation continuing that tradition.  They are a good group of people to know and I am continually grateful to be a part of such a family that has welcomed me despite the fact that I’m not actually part of their bloodline.

Charlie’s big debut to most of the family will be at this year’s party.  It feels good to know that he, too, will be welcomed and loved.  Although we might have to convince some cousins that he shouldn’t participate in the family trap shoot until next year!