Some of my favorite childhood memories are from when we got together with my extended family. My mom is the oldest of seven children, and I’m the oldest of the family’s 21 grandchildren. Getting together with the cousins meant instant
Some of my favorite childhood memories are from when we got together with my extended family. My mom is the oldest of seven children, and I’m the oldest of the family’s 21 grandchildren.
Getting together with the cousins meant instant buddies. And special buddies, too. It wasn’t like being home with my two sisters, which I did every day.
It was playing with my cousins. They had different toys, liked different things, had different experiences. As we got older, and more cousins came along, it was taking the little ones to the park or the pool. I felt so grown-up, so trusted, when my aunts and uncles would let me and the older bunch be in charge.
Now, the oldest bunch of cousins have brought another generation into the growing clan. Five of us have married and each couple has a child.
Two weeks ago, we all convened in Watervliet, Mich., for the most-recently-married cousin’s vow renewal ceremony and party. Just about everyone came. All 14 of the aunts and uncles, 19 of the 21 cousins, the five spouses and the five babies.
The youngest of my cousins couldn’t get enough of the five toddlers and babies.
Our first night together, they wanted my 2-year-old son to sit at their table during dinner. I let him.
They made sure he carefully ate his sandwich — or at least the meat and cheese from the middle of it — and that he ate instead of just drinking juice. As I sat visiting with aunts and uncles who live across the country, I heard them reminding him to eat.
They taught him their names, and laughed as he tried to remember which new name went with which new face.
Listening to this, I looked at one of my aunts and realized something: They must have loved it when we all got together, and they had ready-made, enthusiastic babysitters.
At the reception, my cousins had so much fun dancing with my little guy that I barely saw him. Whenever I would join in, he’d soon ditch me.
When it comes down to it, mom is just not as cool as Jack.
And I’m OK with that.
I love that he had time to get to know his cousins, to run around with his cohorts. That he led the party on the dance floor in a crazy game of ring-around-the-rosy.
It was a little like being inside a closed three-way mirror, with everything reflecting and interconnecting. I saw my younger self in my cousins, their younger selves in my son. My grandparents were present in my parents and my aunts and uncles, and them in me and the older cousins.
My heart was full of love and gratitude; my son’s was full of joy.
• Mommy Talk is an online parenting blog written by (Racine, Wis.) Journal Times reporters Janine Anderson and Marci Laehr Tenuta. Find it online at www.journaltimes.com/mom.
