Cookies and cousins
Every year, my mother’s side of the family gets together to bake and decorate cookies. This year, Emily’s Nana sent her a nifty shirt to wear. We forgot to bring a camera to the cookie bake, which is a shame, but here’s a picture of it. This is after the cookie bake, when she was both exhausted and hopped up on sugar, which explains the bouncing.
Her four second-cousins were there, ranging in age from 11 to 3. The older ones went outside to play while the three-year-old kept decorating cookies. Nine-year-old Ava asked Emily if she wanted to come. She did. They all played hide and seek. It’s Emily’s favorite game, even though she’s a little too enthusiastic to be very good at it. Her cousin Forrest walked by where she was hiding, and she called out, “who are you looking for?” Needless to say, he found her. She didn’t care, though, she was having fun.
The cookie bake was held at my Aunt Lynne’s. She has a big spread, just up the hill from her stables. There’s almost no traffic, and I knew that the other three kids played there all the time, so I made a conscious decision not to hover and to let them go out and play without interfering. I played up there all the time as a kid, so I was familiar with the layout and how safe it was. My mom watched them go out and said, “I think I’ll just go out and pet the dog.” They have a Bernese Mountain Dog, the same kind as we used to have, so we do like to pet her and think about our old girl. I think petting the dog was probably just secondary to watching Emily, which is fine.
Emily had a great time playing hide and seek and tag, and then came in to rest. She said, “Hannah and Ava and Forrest are coming in, too.” I said, “no, I think they’re staying outside to play.” She thought for a minute, then turned around and went back outside. This happened several times until they all decided to come in. I love this because it’s the first time that her desire to play and be social has overwhelmed her desire to come inside and decompress and calm down. And from what I saw, she was keeping up just fine. Those are some great kids.
She did very well with the social niceties, and is finally adding “excuse me” to her repertoire when she needs to get past someone. As we were leaving, she turned back at the door to tell Aunt Lynne, “Bye! Thank you for being with us!”
She slept like a log last night, to the point that she overslept and we were five minutes late for school this morning. Oh, well, it was a small price to pay.
We’re looking forward to seeing her other cousins on Friday at Nana and Grandpa’s house!