Cousin

I've been traveling for work and one trip put me in the same town as my cousin. My cousin is a great person, but we've never been particularly close due to seeing each other infrequently growing up. But getting together is always nice as our shared family history allows us to pick up where we left off last time. So overall it was a good night. But still there were many moments that went straight to my heart.

We spent most of the evening talking about her children, or my sister's children. That is fine, she has great kids and my nieces and nephews are great. And catching up does involve a lot of catching up on the lives of children. But then I started inquiring about her siblings. First she filled me in on one of her sisters, who is recently pregnant. Despite the fact that this cousin has trouble taking care of her two current kids. And getting a divorce. Sigh. Another example of how frustrating it is to know you would be a great mother when less stable people have no trouble at all in the babymaking department.

Then she mentioned one of her brothers. He has a collection of pugs because his wife can't have children and they are compensating with dogs. My ears picked up at this, but with our complicated family, her brother is not related to me and I haven't seen in about 20 years, so I didn't want to pry into details, although my cousin did mention her SIL recently had a hysterectomy.

The icing on the cake, though, was the continuing conversation about wanting her husband to get a vasectomy. She is quite sure they are done at three kids and is trying to convince her husband that he should make sure they don't have accident. Ahh, how nice it must be to be so worried about an accidental pregnancy that you get fixed.