November is the month we reflect on all our blessings and things we have to be thankful for.  As with every year we have much to be thankful for in this house — our health, our children, our home, etc.  I could write a post entirely on any and all of these topics, but I decided this year to focus on something that I am incredibly grateful for and never would have had without Mr. Chocolate: siblings.

You might recall I am an only child, and now with my father gone, it’s just my mother and me. Mr. Chocolate, however, comes from a larger family with both his parents, his sister, his brother and now their spouses as well. When I married into Mr. Chocolate’s family, I not only gained a new mother and father, but also siblings — something I never had in my life but always wanted.

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Siblings you meet when you are older and are adults already are quite different from siblings that you grow up knowing your entire life.  Mr. Chocolate is incredibly close to his family, so we often would vacation, take day trips, and just spend large amounts of time with his family. At first that was a brand new concept for me, as I grew up wanting to spend as little time as possible as I could with my family.

My parents and I had what I would describe as a typical Asian-American relationship, in that there was some tension and strain as two different cultures collided that led to differences in feelings and expectations. For many years I had built up the idea that my friends were truly my family; the ones who understood me, who stood by me, and who didn’t criticize me for living my life the way I wanted rather than what they expected. My friends were the family I chose because the family I was born into was simply not one I felt I fit into well at all. Many of my friends, mostly Asian, fit into the same mindset, so the idea of liking one’s natural family and being as close and tight with them as regular friends was a foreign idea to me.

When I married Mr. Chocolate, I joined another family that was different from the family of friends I had chosen. With me being Chinese and Mr. Chocolate being Caucasian, our family expectations and ideals were very different at times.  Mr. Chocolate and I often had to work through some of those differences early on in our relationship, and his family had to adjust some to me becoming a part of the family, as I had to adjust to their norms and values too. Over time we managed to work out a relationship; one that I would have never called close, but rather comfortably polite. We basically always put on our best behavior in front of each other, tried to acquiesce as much as possible to the other party, and tip toed with great care to make sure the other person was happy and never voiced displeasure in front of one another.  It felt in a lot of ways like always being on a first date, but it worked and everyone was kept happy in this new arrangement at least.  I never thought it would graduate much further from that, but I was ok with that too since it was better than what some of my friends had with their in laws.

For many years, this was how my relationship was with both Mr. Chocolate’s parents and his siblings.

Then Drake came along.

Since I have no siblings of my own, I never really thought about the idea of becoming an aunt or uncle, or how much a child born of my sibling could be of so much significance to me.  On the day of Drake’s birth, Mr. Chocolate’s entire family came to wait at the hospital during my labor. I saw them once when I was around 7 cm and still doing fairly well, and then they left for dinner and to wait baby’s arrival. At midnight when I hit 10 cm, they came to the hospital and sat in the waiting room and waited for what would be 4 more hours, as Drake didn’t make his grand entrance into the world until 4:19 AM.

Mr. Chocolate’s sister and her husband were among the first to hold baby Drake. Mr. Chocolate’s younger brother was at work that day — he was an EMT at the time — and on their stop to the hospital, he ran up to meet his new nephew and to say congratulations. His family stayed until a little after 5am, and then headed home to shower and go to their jobs. It never would have occurred to me how exciting the birth of a nephew could be for Mr. Chocolate’s siblings.

Over the course of the next three years as Drake grew up, Mr. Chocolate’s siblings, especially his sister and her husband, have doted on Drake as if he was their own.  Since the moment he was born, they have been a constant and consistent presence in his life in a way that has surprised me, as well as made me extremely grateful. Every time we go to Mr. Chocolate’s parents’ house for dinner, we know that it’s basically break time for us as Mr. Chocolate’s siblings entertain, play, and indulge Drake’s every whim, whether it’s his desire to hide all the toys then go on a massive house-wide search, to watch non-stop animal videos online, or just to run amok all over the backyard with them chasing and playing with him the entire time.  Mr. Chocolate and I sit back, enjoy some wine (only Mr. Chocolate) and know that Drake couldn’t be happier without us as he has the best playmates in his aunt and uncle.

Now that Juliet is here, it’s no different as whenever Mr. Chocolate’s family is around, she is passed around and played with and cuddled.  There have even been times on their days off that Mr. Chocolate’s siblings will come and take Drake out for a special treat, a beach day, the park, etc. even though they could easily be doing other things on their day off. And of course because they have doted on him his entire life, Drake is so in love with his aunts and uncles. He talks about them when they are not around.  Sometimes to get him to get ready faster, we tell him we are going to see them and his demeanor immediately changes.  Sometimes when we are home he will say he misses them and wants to call them on the phone.

Now I truly know I have been blessed with Mr. Chocolate’s siblings, as they love my children as if they were their own. When I see how much Drake (and Juliet one day) love them back, it warms my heart in a way words can’t even describe. I tell myself that one day I will have to reciprocate this for their children, but honestly I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to hold a candle to the way Mr. Chocolate’s siblings have devoted themselves to our children.  I am forever grateful for the time, energy, and sacrifice they put out so that Mr. Chocolate and I can not only have a break, but also to develop that strong loving family bond with Drake and Juliet. They’ve shown them how wonderful family truly can be in a way that I, as their mother, could never do because of the way I grew up. So even though these are siblings and family I didn’t have a choice in receiving, this time I have come to see how lucky I am to be able to call them all my family.