Cousins

I was lucky to grow up having lots and lots of cousins. My mom was the middle of 13 children and all but one of her siblings married and had children. One of them had 11! So that meant lots of first cousins...and almost all of us lived in the same town. Our annual family reunion picnic was something we looked forward to all year and it is one of the sweetest childhood memories for many of us. Several of those cousins were the same age as me, or close to it. Many of us went to school together. It was great!

My kids were not so lucky. On my side they only had two cousins and they were younger and lived out of town. On Jerry's side, they had 5 that were older and lived out of state and 8 that lived out of town, too. So they missed that great experience.


Moving on down another generation, we have the grand kids. They only have 3 first cousins. They live nearby but are older, too.

But there are other kinds of cousins. There's "kissing cousins", "shirt-tail cousins", cousins "once (or more) removed", etc. I'm never sure how the second or third-cousin thing goes. But Savannah and Emery recently had a great time with a girl they just call their cousin. Actually, her mom is one of Jodi's first cousins. Their grandfathers are brothers. I'll leave the math and "removing" to you.

Kimberly is 2 months younger than Savannah and they both think that is pretty cool. They first met when they were only about 6 months old. They stared and poked at each other as babies do. They then saw each other about 6 months later and, again, were curious about that other baby. Kimberly lives in Illinois and Savannah lives here in Georgia, so that's why their contact has been minimal.



When they were about 2 years old, Kimberly's family stopped on their way home from Florida and the girls played together for a little while. I don't know if they remember hearing about that or seeing pictures, but they have remained fascinated with each other ever since then. This year, again, Kimberly's family was stopping by on their way home (It's a good thing they go to Florida from time to time!) and the kids got together. Emery was excited, too, even though the last time they saw each other he wasn't even born yet.
They went roller skating together in the afternoon and then had a movie and slumber party on the living room floor. Even though they got to spend less than 24 hours together, they all had a very good time and I'm sure they'll be ready to see Kimberly again whenever she comes back by this way.