The Cousins Are Here! The Cousins Are Here!

Frazer and CJ, 7 and 12 respectively, are staying with my folks at the farm and Cub had to sleep over -- HAD to. He's always been so attached to them, and my other niece Jolie. They matter far more than playmates that he sees every week, even though sometimes we only get to visit once or twice a year. I wouldn't expect a 3yo to realize that, but he does and always has. Either that, or those kids are just UberCool and have imprinted him with their Top Fun Quotient. Also possible.

So they spent two days obsessively gaming, playing in wading pools and frightening the nearby livestock, getting up at 5am to bully MorFar into a morning horseback ride, entertaining Whiskey until he categorically refused to take a nap if they were anywhere in his sight for fear of missing something fun. They built huge forts in the living room and stayed up ridiculously late. They ate undgodly crap and watched worthless tv.

Frazer likes to carry Cub around, in spite of the fact that "I do know how to walk, you know." His greatest joy in life is to have a bossy little girl take charge, and our Frazer is just the one to do it. She's a beautiful, delicate-looking child, with a steel shaft of Pure Will running up her spinal column. We're all praying that she uses her powers for Good.

CJ is the gentlest, most patient 12yo boy I've ever seen. He alternately participates in the insanity and tries to rein it in, and only occasionally flees to a room with a lock on it, pleading for just a few minutes alone. Far less often than I would under the same circumstances.

In spite of their hideous eating habits and revolting taste in tv shows, they are both charming, smart, and healthy, with a natural niceness rather than the "IGottaSayPleaseOrDadWillGetTheBelt" kind of forced politeness. My sister enjoys making dark, threatening predictions that my boys will follow the same pattern as her two -- but she's kidding. She knows perfectly well that I would be delighted if they turn out as gentle, interesting, and energetic as their cousins. I think she knows that. I think. Well, I told CJ, just in case.

All four, including the baby, were completely fried by the end of the sleepover. We're taking a couple of days to recover, and then we'll do it again. Perhaps with a bottle of Kiddie Ambien, just in case.

(They don't really make such a thing, do they? Never mind. I don't want to know.)

Pamela