I’m the youngest of three, and as I grew up through my teen, high school, and college years I subconsciously put my older brother and sister into “boxes” of how I viewed them.  I superimposed on them a persona based upon my understanding of their lives and my relationship with them.  They were always my brother or sister, but they were always placed into a context in my head.

Over time they’ve repeatedly messed up my head by…well… living.  The first instance of this was the first time I was on the phone with my brother at work and he told me he had to go because he had a meeting.  Now, I recognize this is a totally everyday, mundane thing, but at that moment he was no longer just the brother that I played soccer and partied with in college.  He was a grown up with a job.  I had already realized he was a grown up and had a job, but at that point it was officially official.  He thought I was weird for thinking that at the time, and he probably still does.

It took a little while for that to happen with my sister.  She is older than me and when I was a teen she was already in college and working so she was in the working adult box from pretty early on.  She broke that box when I saw her with her first baby for the first time, and the first thing I thought was, “holy crap my sister is a mom.”  Yeah, I knew she had her baby and she was a mom, but she was like, really a mom.  Again, this is a completely natural progression of life that for some reason hadn’t sunk in until it was right there in front of me.  And for the record I think she’s a bad ass at work and being a mom.

The most recent breaking of a box is chalked up to my brother.  He and his wife just had their first baby and he’s a freaking dad.  I have to say that again.  He’s a freaking dad.  I don’t expect this to have the same impact on anyone else, but this totally throws me for a loop, even though it shouldn’t.  My brother and I are two years apart so we’ve shared many life experiences and have had a long standing, health sibling rivaly, and I generally think he’s a big goon in a good sort of way.  He’s looked forward to having a family for a while, and the goofiness in him that made it hard for me to see him as a father is probably one of the qualities that’s going to make him an awesome dad and make his kids love him.

In closing, box broken, my brother is a dad, and I’d just like to say, “welcome to the world BroJr.”  I’m completely psyched for my brother and sister-in-law and I can’t wait to make a trip up to MN. to meet him for the first time.  I also reserve the right to take a moment to process my brother holding him the first time I see it in person.