It’s a Girl Thing

During hubby’s last long trip, two weeks in Asia, the girls and I headed up to my mother’s house for a break from all of our 24/7 togetherness that was getting to be too much for all of us. My sister also went up with her 9-month-old daughter. On the drive up, String Bean asked if her uncle would be there, and when I told her no, she said, “Oh, so it’s a girl thing.” I chuckled about that for the rest of the drive. One thing about super-effeminate String Bean, she appreciates girl things.

We’ve had three of these girls’ weekends at Mom’s house now, with Mom, her two girls, and three “grandgirls” as she calls them, and I have to say, I like the girl thing. Trips up to Mom’s house are a great way to get some extra help when hubby’s out of town for a couple of weeks, but when my sister and her daughter come, too, it’s more like a weekend-long party of girlness. We’re not sitting around painting toenails and doing each other’s hair: my sister is as makeup clueless and hair-product challenged as I am, but there are some feel-good movies watched and a lot of chocolate is consumed.

String Bean is a pretty good babysitter-in-training. She follows her cousin around, diverting her from danger, calling out updates to us every few minutes: “She’s near the stairs! She’s heading for the plant! She has a poopy diaper!” So that we can visit a bit and yet still keep a decent eye on the baby, who is now crawling and pulling up and getting into a whole new kind of trouble, especially at Mom’s un-baby-proofed house. String Bean understands which size objects are baby safe and which ones aren’t, and is pretty good at trading her little cousin small objects for larger ones. Peanut’s great at being silly and getting her cousin giggling. One of my favorite things about these girl weekends is watching the three girls playing and laughing together.

My other favorite thing is just hanging out with my sister, catching up and reminiscing and laughing about nothing at all. With three kids between us, we don’t get much quiet time to talk when we get together for an afternoon here and there, but over the course of a full weekend, we get lots of opportunities to talk and laugh. And this is in large part due, of course, to my mother’s tireless efforts in caring for her grandgirls. They are fed, dressed, bathed, fights are broken up, activities are planned, endless questions are answered, and instead of the constant “No, I want Mommy to do it!” that I always hear at home, I get to hear the beloved “No, I want Grandma to do it!” which is currently one of my favorite phrases in the English language.

Baby Brother

Tonight String Bean informed me that she doesn’t play with boys much at school, because she just doesn’t like boys all that much. I chuckled and told her that’s pretty normal for her age, but that she’ll like them more as she grows up. She considered this briefly, then said, “Except a baby brother. I would really like to play with a baby brother. He’d be so cute, and I’d be very good friends with him.” She gave me a knowing look (or knowing, for a four-year-old). Rather than telling her there’s no chance of that happening, as both hubby and I agree we’re done having kids, I just changed the subject.

I remember having my own phase of wishing for a baby brother. It was derailed temporarily by my parents’ divorce, but then resumed when my step-father moved in with my mom. But I never got my baby brother. Instead, I learned to stop fighting with my sister so much, and we became best friends. Since my girls are already best friends, I haven’t got that in the pipeline to satisfy her wish. Instead, I guess I need to get her a little more cousin time. Sure, her cousin is a girl instead of a boy, but at 4 months old, baby girls and baby boys aren’t all that different. And after that, we’ll just see if another cousin comes along (when my sister and brother-in-law are ready, although my sister is already saying she wants another baby, and soon is fine by her), and maybe it’ll be a boy, the kind of boy String Bean thinks she’d like to play with and be very good friends with.

Swim Girls

We had our last play group gathering at a beach-type pool nearby (Contra Loma in Antioch, for those in the Bay Area). They have a large, shallow pool, with a nice sand bank on one side, perfect for young swimmers and tots who can’s even walk yet but know how to sit on sand in shallow water and splash up a good time.

The girls were thrilled to wade and play with their play mates in chest-high water, and were equally excited to wear their life vests and water wings (not at the same time) and try out the deeper water. There were lifeguards on duty who spent most of their shift yelling at kids to stop throwing sand (not to mean that the kids there were out of control, but to point out that the mass of little swimmers kept it safe enough that the lifeguards had little else to do but scold the sand-throwers).

Hubby came with us, which means I actually got to socialize with my friends a bit (not always possible at play dates, with two girls to watch who are always running in opposite directions). My sister, now at the tail-end of her maternity leave, and her 4-month-old baby came, too, and a good time was had by all. The girls had a tough time choosing between staying in the water and camping out under the beach umbrella next to their favorite baby in the world, and we had to drag them out of there screaming for more swim time and more cousin-love time. They were good and tired after all that, so we had successful naps and early bed times. It’s a bit too far away to go on a regular basis, but that’s not stopping the kids from asking every day if we can go back.

Cousin Love

My girls, who were so anxious to meet their new cousin a week after she was born, spent their entire first visit obsessed with my sister’s cat toys. They weren’t impressed by the sleeping swaddled baby who seemed oblivious to them, and barely interacted with her at all.

My sister recently came over with her now one-month-old baby for a visit. My niece is much more alert now, looking all around, making those ridiculously sweet grunting and squealing vocalizations, and she stretches with a single-minded joy, arching her narrow back and testing how far she can spread her toes. This time, with the ability to see their cousin’s eyes, feel her grasp, and convince themselves that her baby noises were just for them, my girls were all over her. Literally.

I gave the girls the run-down on the rules several times before my sister arrived: no touching baby’s face or hands, gentle touching of her belly, legs, and feet is okay, and no screaming in the room with her. They listened well and were able to repeat the rules back to me. Then our visitors arrived, and the girls squealed their welcome in ear-piercing tones (waking the sleeping baby), and proceeded to fight over who got to hold her precious hand.

My unflappable sister was her usual jovial self, gently admonishing them without seeming truly alarmed. I can count on one hand the number of first-time moms I’ve met who wouldn’t panic at the sight of two over-stimulated kids bearing down on her newborn. Actually, I can count them on one finger, as my sister is the only one I’ve met.

After the initial enthusiasm wore off, we were able to get the girls to only hold their cousin’s feet with that vice-grip of love. It’s a good approximation of how we all feel about this newest member of our family, the baby that it took a decade of trying for my sister to have. Most of us are better able to restrain ourselves in the baby’s presence, but as I watched my two girls beaming brightly down at the cousin who has just learned to smile and beamed right back at them, I was immensely grateful for the dog-pile of cousin love on my lap. We should all be so lucky, to enter the world with so much loving anticipation, an entire family desperate to meet us, and two adoring cousins gushing with joy at our mere presence.