Hey kid, watch out for Gizint.

A few years ago, when both of my folks were going though an unusually difficult time regarding their health, my father sat me down and talked about grandkids. Only half jokingly, he implored, "I don't care how you do it, or who you do it with, I want grandkids soon. I don't care who it is that you pick-up off the street to make this a reality." How very sweet. He even promised to help out financially since, at that time, I was hardly employed, and the employment stability of the proposed future-mother-of-my-children was directly tied to the level in which the Williams administration punished ladies of the night.

Thankfully, both of my parents have been in great health(physically) for some time, and my sister has since gotten hitched, so the responsibility for reproducing has fallen on her shoulders with the weight of 10 Passover briskets. My mother puts on her best old-Jewish mother voice and kvetches to her other old-Jewish mother friends "Ahch, she will never give me a grandchild!."

Well, all of that changed when a few months ago Bek found out that she will become a mother. My father cried when he found out, mother mother screamed, my aunt did this really funny dance and shouted "all right, all right!." (watch video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57L0YpsDgQ4)

My sister and I are super close. She is hands down the funniest person I know and we get along very well. But this was not always this case. She and I, especially as children, were very different. She could most often be found crying in public, tears streaming down her face, embarrassed at some benign action of my mothers (grinding with drunken Polish mummers during the mummers parade for example). I on the other hand, was a soft spoken, complacent kid, happy to ponder why tears came so easily to my sister.

As we got older, our relationship took on new dynamics. For example, my folks would often punish her for some transgression or another, and then would put me in charge of carrying out her punishment "Josh, Bek has been grounded from TV for the night, we are going out for a while, make sure she doesn't get near the TV." These actions would often leave me with bruises, broken skin or both.

Recently, she married a man, who like my mother, will happily embarrass her in public. He has a life-size Lawrence Taylor cutout, a once large collection of pleated pants, and a sense of humor directly connected to the degree in which my sister will get red in the face. He is a good man. Last Thanksgiving I witnessed a truly epic fight in which my sister discovered that the peanut butter she uses for breakfast was the same peanut butter that her husband dips their dogs bone into everyday. It was awesome. Back to the point of this long winded tale...

Bek is going to make a rad mother. But she will have to learn to deal with a child that will turn out almost exactly like me. Hairy, drawn to loud music, lover of beefaroni from a young age, critical of most events around him. It should be an interesting fit and one that I intend to laugh at and nurture with smiles, joy, and secret packages of metal records and leftist literature.