My mother is town for JP’s birthday, with my step-father and her mother (my step-grandmother). On JP’s birthday we will be joined by my father and his third wife, or in JP’s somewhat confused parlance—Grandpa Steve and Grandpa Lucie. At some point on his birthday JP will see his mother’s parents—Ong and Ba (they’re Vietnamese). Several great uncles may show up throughout the course of the day, along with various cousins, some friends, and parents he knows from school. My girlfriend and my ex’s girlfriend will be around. My brother, JP’s uncle, will surely call, as will his mother’s four sisters, their husbands, plus one long-term boyfriend whom JP has always called Uncle Jonno, and who he knows rather better than some of his actual uncles.
You guys getting all that? Yes, all families are complex, and not just in the Tolstoyan sense that Nathan described last week. But with all the divorces and remarriage, combined with the long lives of my extended family members, JP has to reckon with a family tree only a Mormon could parse.
Right now JP is in the kitchen with my mother and his step-great-grandmother supervising while they make blueberry pancakes. He’s calling both of them grandma.
Smart kid.
I grew up with three grandparents. That’s it. I craved family, but my parents are both only children. Every Christmas, every birthday, every event, 9 people: three grandparents, mom and dad, myself and three sisters.
The idea of this extended family exhausts me. But what fun!