I Love That My Kids Love Their Aunts, Uncles and Cousins

We all know that family can be challenging at times but I love big messy families. In my opinion, there is nothing better than a big loud family gathering. I am so lucky to be part of big families — Irish Catholic on my side and Dutch on my husband’s side. Despite occasional drama, I’ve always loved family and I realize that not everyone has family they love, so I know I’m lucky. I grew up with one little sister and nine first cousins. My sister and I were the youngest ones of cousin bunch. We looked up to the older cousins and loved spending time with them. We spent almost every Sunday night having dinner at either our house or my Uncle Wally’s house. We had roast beef and Auntie Jeannie’s delmonico potatoes almost every time. I remember when my sister and I — actually just nerdy me — wanted to go home because it was a school night, but my parents were having one more drink. “You can sleep in the car” my mom used to day. My cousin Lynn used to spend a few weeks with us in the summer and my sister and I thought it was the best two weeks ever. My cousin Carol went sailing with us — sort of as a babysitter but way better. I used to spend time at their house and I got to eat Lucky Charms EVERY DAY. Great memories.

My husband and I have three children and our kids have nine first cousins as well. My sister has two children who live in Boston. We don’t see them as often as we see my husband’s family who is in Chicago, but for what we lack in quantity we make up in quality. For years when the kids were little, I would spend a few weeks in Boston in the summer visiting my sister and my Mom. The kids spent so much time together that even though we don’t see them as often as the Chicago cousins, they have deep bonds. My kids love my sister — partly because she understands me and can explain my weirdness to them, and partly because she is like me in many ways so they can sympathize with their cousins. Our kids have seven cousins on my husband’s side. He has an older brother with four children. They are older than our kids, but as our kids have grown they’ve become closer. My husband’s sister has three children who are the almost exactly the same ages as our three. In fact, we had the same OB and we shared a nanny with them for two years. Our first two are two months apart. Our second two are two weeks apart. Our third children are eighteen months apart, but only because we didn’t read the memo on timing. Our oldest children were raised together for the first two years and we have remained really close with them. We regularly vacation together and see them as often as possible.

So now we are all quarantined and we can’t see each other. I think this kills me more than rest of the family, but I could be wrong. I’m all about getting family together and they give me a hard time about always being the last to leave. I think they all feel the same way as I do but it’s easy to blame it all on me. Quarantine doesn’t change things much for the Boston cousins because technically we didn’t have official plans to see them this summer. We spent a great few days together here at Christmas, but since three kids are supposed to be in college in the fall, we didn’t make specific plans to see them this summer. My sister and I still have plans to see Kenny Chesney at Gillette Stadium in August so… I know it won’t happen but it’s not cancelled yet. As far as the rest of her family, we tried a Zoom call over dinner which clearly only my sister and I liked, so we’re not doing that again. I got a card from my niece this week and my eldest son texted my sister yesterday. We moved into a new house last August so this is our first spring here. We have a beautiful tree blooming in the yard. My eldest asked me what kind of tree it was and of course I didn’t know. I started to say something but before I could finish he said “I know, text Aunt Sarah”. Sarah knows everything about plants. He sent a text with a photo, which she immediately answered. It’s a dogwood. An old variety. The next day she called and asked if he was asking for me. She loved that he wasn’t asking for me and that he texted her. I loved that he wasn’t asking for me and that he texted her and that she loved that.

As for my husband’s family, we’ve seen them at the end of our driveway when they came up for our eldest’s 21st birthday. We couldn’t hug them but we soaked up all their love for the two hours they were here and we did a socially distanced group hug. This past weekend we played an online version of Cards Against Humanity with them, which of course I lost. This weekend we are each creating a presentation and having another family member present it to the group. The only rules are no more than ten slides and you have to present whatever you get assigned with the appropriate amount of enthusiasm. We have four over 50 adults, two 21 year olds, two 18 year olds, one 16 year old and one 15 year old. This is going to be ridiculous.

The point of sharing all this or I should say writing about it is that I realize that even in a quarantine I’m lucky to have a family that I’m truly connected to and I’m grateful that we’ve put in the time over the years so that our kids get it. We’ve had loss in our family. Both my parents are gone as is my husband’s mom, but luckily we have lots of family still around that are willing to invest time in each other. We’ve gone to talent shows, dance recitals, swim meets, sailing races, golf matches as well as weddings. We’ve let kids travel to visit. We’ve allowed kids to visit. We’ve validated the craziness of parents for our nieces/nephews, as well as called bullshit on each other. We’ve invested the time so that now that we can’t see each other we can still be there for each other.

Family is complicated but at the end of the day they are the ones that truly get you. They understand where you came from and they can truly empathize. It’s easy to let disagreements get in the way, but in the the end, we need each other. There is a history that no one else will ever understand. You need cousins and aunts and uncles so one day you can call and say “remember when ….”