Cousins in Arms

I am the oldest of 9 cousins. My brother Matt, who is the next of the cousins, is 6 years younger than I, so for a long time it was the adults and me. In fact, I was 10 years old before I even earned the title 'cousin'....on March 16th, 1978, when my cousin Doug was born (and, yes, sorry Doug, but I cried all the way to school, disappointed you weren't a girl...but that's what 10-year-olds do!)

So the years went by...Derrick, Tom, Brad, Lisa (finally a girl when I was 13 years old!!!), Greg and Brian. There were only 3 of us on my mom's side, the Harker family, so we didn't have to fight much to get attention. And, being the only girl for a long time on my dad's side, the Eakins family, didn't hurt, either. I was able to get so much special time with my grandparents that the younger cousins didn't: watching Johnny Carson with Grandma Eakins late at night and Love Boat at Grandma and Grandpa Harker's; riding in my Grandpa Harker's models A and T at parades; making TONS of Christmas cookies every year with my Grandma Harker and mom; and frying green tomatoes and dandilions with my Grandma Eakins...can you say YUM?! And, it was never too crazy at family get-togethers, so we were all able to have a good time and stay relatively close, even though my parents had moved from the Chicago suburbs to a farm in southern Wisconsin, 2 hours away.

Since I got a later start on a family than Matt, and Bernie's sister Jen was married early, too, our Twinkies entered this world already having 5 cousins: Timmy 10; Annie, 8; Nadia, 4; Cody, 3; and Mason, 2. How sad we were that only 3 weeks after the Twinkies were born, Nadia and Mason moved from NJ as their time in the AF here was done...but at least the Twinkies came 5 weeks early so that they could meet them before they left! And, the Twinkies still had their NJ cousins, Timmy, Annie and Cody...TAC...who only lived about an hour away and were incredibly excited to be the BIG COUSINS.

To be realistic, until the last year or so, the Twinkies haven't really appreciated cousins, both in concept and function. They were often so content with having each other, and they were really too young up until now.  The age gap made it hard, too. However, over the past summer, the Twinkies have been able to spend much more time with all of their cousins than they'd been used to, and it was incredible: My brother came out for the 4th and spent almost a week with us, and we had time at the shore with Timmy, Annie and Cody and then again for a 3-day sleepover at our house.

There is something indescribable about spending days in a row with someone versus simply visiting them for an afternoon birthday party or holiday dinner. First of all, there aren't as many people around, so you can play, eat, hang out, and have adventures. Secondly, you can just 'be' a lot easier! If you forget to ask something at 1pm, chances are you'll remember to ask in a few hours....and you'll still be together!  You really get to learn a lot about a person, you laugh over little things...like the misunderstood lyrics of songs and funny food habits.

Being together over extended periods gives people the opportunity to be reminded that we are not all alike...we each have unique differences and quirks.  The beauty of being a family is that we love each other anyway.  I've been a fan for some time of the saying that you can love someone and at the same point in time not like them.  I think it's a great way of putting our differences into perspective....that no difference or obstacle takes away from the love we have of family (and good friends, for that matter!)