Who Would've Thunk It?

As I've written, Brendan had his birthday last week.  Because we live so far away from the rest of the family, when we invite people over, we get a trickle of family members for almost a week.  People just show up when it's most convenient for them; and our door is always open.

One of the people who showed up to celebrate my sonny-boy's life thus far was his aunt, my sister-in-law.  My sister-in-law, E., is fiercely protective of "her" family -- be it her parents, her brother, Big Bren's children and even my Brendan.  For some reason, though, she seems to think that I am someone to protect them from.  No matter how nice I am and have been, she's always asking questions about me.  How do I treat the kids?  Do I treat them well?  Am I too strict?  Am I nice to her parents when they come to visit?

Last week was no exception.  She took her grandson to Brendan's birthday party and then asked whether she could take my step-daughter with her to the store.  I thought nothing of it; that's her niece, so I figured she wanted to spend some alone time with her since she rarely sees her.

When she got back with my stepdaughter, N., a few hours later, she was in an exceptionally good mood.  She said that she'd had a frank discussion with N. about me and N. had only good things to say.  She told her how I always bought her nice things, because I said that women should always dress nicely and take care of their appearance.  How I had bought N. her first Coach bag and explained that a nice bag always makes a young lady's outfit.  As she was telling me this, I inwardly rolled my eyes, figuring that she would think I was trying buy the child's affection.  We all know how materialistic teenagers can be.  But she went on.  She said that N. also told her how I tried to teach her how to cook and how I made all types of cakes and pies from scratch.  And how I did everything I did with care and love, making home-cooked meals for the family on the weekends and even taking time to arrange my salads just right, so that everything looked pretty before we ate dinner.

I didn't know what to say.  I just stood there.  To be honest, I never realized that N. noticed the things I did.  This is the child who called me "her" and "she" for the first 10 years of my 11-year relationship with her father.  Her mother still refers to me as "the Slut" even though Big Bren and I have been married for 7 years.

I have a friend who always talks about her stepmother and how she (the stepmother) had a positive influence on her life.  I always told Big Bren how sad it made me feel that I did not have that sort of relationship with his children.  Imagine my surprise to find out that -- in fact -- I actually do.  :-)