My kids are lucky in that they have grown up and will
continue to grow up in the same area as all of their cousins. The current count of grandkids on my side of
the family is 14 and one more due in July.
Here is the spread: Peter, a couple weeks shy of 13; Sofi, almost 11;
Annabelle, 8 next month; George, 8 in June; Josie, just turned 6 in January; Ava
Clare, just turned 5 in January; Jimmy,
just turned 4 in December; Jay, just turned 4 six days after Jimmy; Stefan, will be 4 in May; Sam will be 3 in June; Katarina, 2 and a half;
Sawyer is a month younger than Katarina;
Callie, almost 9 months; Bart 5 months; and my sister Nikki’s and her husband’s
4th baby is due in July. Within
this crazy bunch, there are several mini-groups formed basically by the birth
order or by personality depending on the day.
While most of the time it is pure chaos, it also makes for a great view
into the lives of children and their interactions with one another. The cousins have grownup seeing each other at
least a couple times a week or more and so are almost like siblings at
times. It is fun to watch as their
personalities emerge and they learn within this crazy bunch to speak up for
themselves and for each other. Beneath
it all, there is a unique bond between all of them. They have shared so much in their little
lives and I look forward to seeing where the future takes all of them. But most of all, I hope they keep their
special cousin cohort no matter where their lives take them.
Yesterday was Josie’s and her older cousins’ last official
day off for spring break, excluding the weekend of course. The preschools which the younger contingent
of the cousins attend all follow the public schools’ spring break schedule so
they had off last week and had school this week. The older contingent of cousins had break
this week. Therefore the mom contingent
had no breakJ But in the hopes of not being any more
long-winded than I already am, I will get to the point. My sisters and I decided we should do something
special with the kids for this last day off.
My sister-in-law Lindsey opted out for a more relaxing afternoon of
making sure her kids took naps- smart woman!
We wanted to do something special that would be fairly cheap or free and
something that would work for all ages.
The weather cooperated and we decided to take a cousin fieldtrip to check
out a historic mill nearby. Now I am
used to being a spectacle with my own four kids, but we are very obviously a
circus when any or all of the cousins are together.
The kids had a blast checking out the mill and the grounds
surrounding it. The cousins prove that
you can have fun anywhere as long as you are all together. The fieldtrip was minimally educational in
that they all sort of learned what a mill is- thanks to my sister Yvette for
being the tourguide since apparently we scared everyone else off. My sister Nikki had brought some crackers to
feed the geese. Normally there are
several geese here. Yesterday there were
two- one floating around on the little creek area where the water from the mill
empties into and the other was clearly sitting on a nest of eggs in the grasses
next to the creek. We made sure the kids
kept away from the goose sitting on the eggs.
Thus, all of the little goonies with the exception of Bart focused their
energy and throwing arms on hoisting crackers to the lone goose on the
water. This was going along “swimmingly”
without incident- it is purely a miracle none of the kids ended up in the
water. Then, the lone goose who had by
now had his fill of crackers decided we were a bit too close to his mate and
her eggs for his liking and he bolted up the bank and charged our entire group,
hissing and snapping his bill with his neck stretched towards us. The entire group of us went into panic mode
and screamed. The kids scattered back up
towards the millhouse. Possibly the
funniest thing to see was my sister Nikki, largely pregnant, freaking out and
pulling a George Costanza shoving her son Sam out of the way so she could run
from the goose. Poor Sam was left
closest to the bill-snapping goose and took a goose bite to the butt. Nikki scurried to rescue Sam and my other
sister Yvette attempted to shoe the goose away by frantically waving her
sweater at it. Just as the goose would
stop and we’d slow down to take a breath and calm down from laughing so hard,
the goose would lurch back into action.
Finally he backed down and the cousins all loved reenacting the great
goose chase. Some men who were
landscaping the grounds clearly enjoyed the amusing picture we painted.
We headed up to the little mill store to buy some
old-fashioned candy which we had promised to the kids. The door was locked with a sign to either go
back down to the millhouse to get someone who worked there or to call a number
from one of our cell phones. No surprise
that our call went unanswered. We formed
a caravan of two kid-packed minivans and a Suburban and headed to Baskin
Robbins. You can fill in the blanks with
how this group behaved in the middle of a small ice cream shop. But it was worth it. I topped off my day with a scoop of Peanut
Butter Chocolate ice cream.
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