We headed over around noon. He was dancing in his carseat for the short ride over to Poppa & Mimi's house.
When we pulled up, he tried to race ahead of us up their porch steps, yelling for his grandparents the whole time. We were just ringing the doorbell and he was already standing on the doorsill. When his Mimi answered the door, you would have thought it was his birthday and he'd just been told we were celebrating Christmas early by taking him to Disney World.
Of course, he loved on Mimi for about 15 seconds before he was demanding his Poppa.
You ever had a new puppy? You know how the puppy acts every time you get home, whether you've been at work all day or just ran down to the gas station for five minutes? That's how my son is with his grandparents. He sees them almost every other day, and he's just as excited to see them every time.
But that's nothing compared to how he is about his older cousin.
My sister (middle sister, this post has the breakdown for reference) arrived with her kids, my son's oldest and youngest cousin, Cousin A (girl) and Baby I (boy). My son thinks Cousin A, who's not quite three, is the coolest person in existence. He loves to hang out and play with her. She, being an almost-three-years-old girl, likes having a little buddy to boss around.
Unfortunately, it was just around time for Cousin A's nap when she got to my parents' house. She was feeling kind of sleepy, so my sister took her upstairs to lay down.
I don't think my son has a great grasp of European history, but if he did, he would probably make some sort of comparison between naptime and a stint in Auschwitz. That was how he acted about my niece being taken away for a nap, anyway.
He cried at the bottom of the stairs, shaking the baby gate and yelling her name, even appending "my" to the beginning of it at times. We tried to get him to come away and play, but he was heartbroken, and couldn't be distracted.
Until, fortuitously, his youngest aunt arrived, with his other beloved girl cousin, Cousin L, who is 11 months.
Soon, he was playing happily with her and was twice as overjoyed when Cousin A got up from her nap. Then his Nana (my mom, Poppa's first wife, my family is really weird) came over, and all three of the older cousins played tea party with her while Baby I watched enviously from his swing.
Nana left, and the rest of the night went as planned. The grown-ups watched NCAA tourney, Cousin A bossed, my son and Cousin L played with her but ignored the bossing, Baby I cried when we cheered the game too loud.
We ate pizza, and the two big kids tried to make friends with the delivery guy. (Note: It's always hilarious in these situations to watch strangers try to figure out which kids are siblings and who goes with what parent, especially when you see their eyes go wide and know they just realized the ages are too close for them to all come from the same mom. Compound this with the fact that my parents are relatively young, and I'm sure we confuse people.)
My youngest sister made cupcakes, and all the kids except Baby I (poor little guy) got sticky, icing-covered faces and fingers. Of course, they would make too big a mess feeding themselves cupcakes, so they roam in a pack of little sugar-crazed beggars, trying to scramble all three of themselves into the lap of whatever nearest adult has a cupcake. (Being swarmed by toddlers is adorable in a very terrifying sense.)
Finally, we had to get home to give the little man a bath, while the girl cousins got a bath at their grandparents. I was still feeling sick, and it'd been a long day for hubby and I, so we all changed into our jammies as soon as baby boy's bath was over.
My husband and I were all ready to get settled in, but our son apparently didn't get the memo. Wearing his pajamas, he picked up his diaper bag and walked to the door.
"Gotta go? See A?"
1 comment:
Good article. Your little boy sounds adorable. Your family....interesting.
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