I was asked why I stopped the last entry short of Cousin Camp, which was from Friday evening to Saturday afternoon. The answer is actually very simple. M had his birthday party Saturday afternoon ( a blog entry will be forthcoming in the next few days on that.) If I had typed up some of the stories, M's party would have had a completely different tenor. Kids would have been crying, parents would not have been talking to each other, grandparents would have been... well actually they would have just been standing off to the sides saying things like "what goes around comes around" and "you kids were much worse at that age". And I would have probably been in the back yard teaching RC how to properly fell a tree, in order to whittle it down to a canoe!
So in reality none of that would have happened, it was I was tired last night. And I needed time to process these stories. At work I use the phrase "Let me crock pot that, and get back to you..." when I want to deflect making a decision in a moment. (This is actually a chapter in my book I am writing.)
Like the last entry I need to explain the characters/Nieces and Nephews.
M= My son, a reoccurring role (9ishly)
m=My daughter, a reoccurring role (7ish)
Truck = Introduced last entry, eldest son of the best eye dr that lives in another city that starts with Em, in the same state. (3ish)
RC= "Race Car" Introduced last entry, youngest son of the best eye dr that lives in another city that starts with Em, in the same state. (Under 12 mo)
Bridget = New addition, Eldest daughter of an engineer that graduated from WSU (5ish)
Conrad = New addition, Youngest son of an engineer that graduated from WSU (3ish)
(these are not all the cousins, there are a few more, but they were not able to attend due to age, and their parents wanted us to sign a waiver...jk)
6 kids. 2 adults. There are plenty of families out there that handle 6 kids, some handle more. I use the word handle because I feel it is a looser word than manage, or control. All and all it was a very good weekend. I can see why we stopped with one of each model. M and m counter balance. Friday during the day adding Truck and RC, that was fine.... for a day. 6 kids, I applaud the people of the world that have more than 5... good for you!
There is one thing you need to know going into the events of Cousin Camp (CC), Truck and Conrad are weeks apart in age. They are very similar in many many ways. In reality we had 3 kids, 1 set of twins, and a baby. Truck and Conrad were the best of friends... until the moments when they were not. Don't worry no children were harmed, hurt, or damaged in the making of CC. I do think Truck and Conrad learned something this weekend, that they are not the top dogs when the other one is around. I found it very similar to a theme/prophesy in Harry Potter (don't worry i won't ruin it for you... the movies and books have not been out long enough, but if you have read or seen them you will understand what I am saying). I would like to think that CC helped them understand "game recognize game", and that eye for an eye is not the best way to get through life... then again they are both 3 so maybe they learned nothing.
The evening started off with a hot dog eating contest in the living room. I was going to play music and give each child a walk up intro similar to the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest... but due to time constraints that will have to wait until next year. And when the parents drop off the kids next time I will have them fill out a survey monkey to make the writing processes easier for their child's intro. No world records were broken that evening. Joey Chesnut's record is safe at least for a few more days.
After dinner we headed to the front drive way for art time. Chalk drawings, at least that is how it started out. I got the crazy idea to have M lay down in the drive way and I was going to do a chalk outline, like what you see in the movies. One outline turned into every child outlined multiple times across the driveway and side walk. There are a lot of things that I could say about what our drive way looked like... but I will just leave it with, there were many many outlines of what looked like small dolls. All the while this is going on RC is looking at us like "If this is what growing up means, you are going to make me lay down in a drive way... I think I will stay a baby and have you carry me around everywhere." (His looks say a lot). When we finished tracing everyone, you would think we would go inside and clean up... not so fast my friend. That only took about 10-15 minutes, it felt MUCH LONGER! The kids invented a new game "OH NO MY DOUGHNUT!" it is a simple game but takes a very long time to master. My mother gave us a chalk set that was in the shape of several donuts. And about 5 of those donuts were your typical round shape. This game starts at the top of the drive way, where a child (the baker) sits down and starts to roll the doughnut down the drive way, then you have someone (older) standing at the sidewalk in front of the street (the pluger) to stop the rolling chalk from going in the street. As soon as "the baker" releases they scream out "OH NO MY DOUGHNUT!" and then they laugh. Now I want you to sit back and think about 5 kids yelling this at the top of their lungs all at different times. I believe it was this moment our neighbors were gratful we did not actually have 6 kids!
Once most of the chalk was in about 27,000 pieces we all headed inside and got cleaned up and put on our pajamas. Went downstairs, where I had set up the basement to look like the Warren Theaters, with seat side serving, recliner chairs, a state of the art computer speakers and a projector for a special showing of the 2009 Bill Hader vehicle "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs". During the movie there was laughter, and there was tears... we will just leave it at that! After the film had concluded everyone went upstairs to brush their teeth, and get ready for bed. I turned on the lights and the beautiful set up that mirrored a freshly opened Warren theater, now resembled a Regal Cinemas movie shack... candy and popcorn on the floor, to floor is wet from something, but you don't want to ask why or how the corner is wet. (Too soon?)
As I walked upstairs everyone was in "bed" and the living room looked like a snapshot of the driveway. Bodies laying every which way. I don't think it took too long for everyone to get to sleep, of course m and Bridget being the only girls stayed up and gossiped for awhile, but the days events eventually got the better of them.
Saturday morning we got up ate cinnamon rolls, and got dressed. Bridget had a very nice dress to wear that matched m's. But we did not want it to get dirty or messed up so we told the girls to go into m's room and find some clothes for Bridget to wear. This quickly turned into an HGTV show that was a mix of What Not to Wear and Hoarders. m was giving away just about everything she owned. And I have a theory about this... it was either:
1. m just has a huge heart and wants what is hers to be her cousins
2. m was giving away things so later she could say to Bridget "Listen, there will be a time where I am going to ask for your blind help, and you CAN NOT EVER ask why!"
We finally explained that m could not give away all of her clothes, or she would have nothing to wear when school starts.
I had a Jane Fossey moment late Saturday morning. The cousins started to splinter off into groups.
-Conrad was off in a room by himself (supervised) becasue he just wanted to play with M's mountain of legos
-Truck kept gravitating to the trampoline... which I think is what he needs for his birthday!
-Bridget and m went off to play "Butterflies" locking themselves in our hammock as their cocoon... which oddly made me want to watch a Steve Gutenberg movie.
-M, strangely kept disappearing to the basement to play Roblox, then some how reappear out on the trampoline
-RC, he was so over the noise and drama that he asked Aunt Beth, quietly, to put him in his pack and play. He said he was just going to lay down and drown out the commotion.
All in all it was a great success. Everyone had fun, and like I said M's party was that afternoon so we go all of those kids SUPER hopped up on sugar to give them back to their parents, along with a pamphlet from Wilford Brimley.
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