Saturday, May 08, 2010

Kiddy Cousins and Breakfast in Grove City

On Sunday morning, K. and I drove over to her parents' house. K.'s brother, wife and kids were also at the house, having driven up from Kentucky the day before. They have three kids, the youngest of which I had never met. K., the boy child, was just a baby the first and only time I met him before and, actually, I think it was the first and only time I met his older sister A. as well. It was nice to spend a few hours with these kiddies.
Note my new glasses. I do not need glasses, but K. had two sets of glasses on her dresser and I put them on to play around, and it turns out they're fake glasses. K. got them on a whim, but they hurt her eyes, so she gave them to me like the generous cousin that she is. The other pair are red. One of these days you'll see them too. I feel a little funny about wearing fake glasses, and have really only been wearing them in front of my parents as a gag...except that I think they make me look smart or different. I am smart and different, so it doesn't come as a surprise that the glasses boost these qualities. But, I'm not sure I'd want anyone I didn't know to meet me with the glasses, because I would be unable to keep myself from telling them they weren't real, and then they would think to themselves 'think of all the poor glasses-wearing people who have no choice, and here she is...' I know. I've over thought it.
Baby I. had quite a dexterous tongue. Can a tongue be dexterous? I swear it was like a little anteater tongue, she could hold a pencil with it.

Much bicycling was done in the court. I held baby I. for quite a while, she's a very laid back baby not at all flummoxed by total strangers hefting her around. A good quality, I think. I kept on lifting her over my head and making her smile, which was great fun, though I must admit that my shoulder and arm muscles ached something fierce the next day...I thought I was coming down with the flu until I remembered that I had been using parts of my body that are usually untaxed. Owning my flaws.




My aunt L. and cousin M. made breakfast for us all. The spread included fresh strawberries, pineapples and blueberries, as well as potatoes, fried eggs, homemade sausage gravy, biscuits and bacon. Oh, it was marvelous.
M.'s sausage gravy was a completely different beast than most diner varieties. I realized that with more sausage and far less flour, sausage gravy can appeal to me in a way that it hardly ever does when I've seen or eaten it in the outside world. Kudos. The eggs, also, were cooked nicely. Mmmmm.
Then K. and A. put on a show. K. would 'play' the piano while A. would dance, and then they would change positions. It made me think of my own performative years when I would insist that neighbor children, or playdate playmates would sing or act out scenes of my choosing. I want to be six again. Or twenty two.
I had troubles taking photographs inside without having the kids be entirely blurry, thus the poor grainy quality of these pictures. I like that it looks like K. is doing the mashed potato in the below image.



It was a nice few hours with the extended family. Thanks to all for the meals, company and entertainment!

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