Cousins are those childhood playmates who grow up to be forever friends.
I feel so fortunate that Nur and TT have such wonderful cousins in their lives. There is something about cousins. They share a bond of being from the same family, of knowing all the idiosyncrasies of a family. They have the joy of sharing the same grandparents and getting to enjoy many holidays together. They are in each other's lives from day 1, and it's an incredible bond that is hard to break.
My kids have wonderful cousins in their lives.
First we have the big girl cousins from T's side of the family. I also had the big girl cousins growing up. These girls are so incredibly special. TT went through a stage where she looked just like the oldest girl, and now she is going through a stage where she looks like the youngest girl. These 3 have strong Egyptian features coming out in them. Nur and TT look up to them so much. They love going and watching them play soccer, and they watch their every move and then try to imitate it. They get so excited when these big girls take an interest in them. When they showed up at TT's birthday party this summer, she screamed with delight, and then ran to the door to embrace them. We love those cousins!
And then there are my sister's children. Her oldest is only 2 weeks older than Nur, and 7 months older than TT. Her youngest is just 14 months younger than TT. These four are going to be partners in action.
TT and her cousin C are inseparable. They love each other (and fight with each other) like they are sisters instead of cousins. When we aren't with them, my kiddos are asking for them. When we do see them, C and TT drop everything they are doing and run to each other and embrace. And baby J, who is now 1 and not such a baby anymore. Nur's only male cousin, and I know they are going to love being life long friends together.
I feel very very blessed that my kiddos have these 4 cousins to grow up with, to learn from, to teach, to play with and laugh with. Cousins. . . what an amazing gift.
1 comment:
I have cousins only on one side of the family, and despite the fact that we grew up with 2/3 of us in WI and the other 1/3 in NY, we've kept close -- and have gotten closer now that we're all grown up. My mom's side of the family still gets together every Christmas, even now that most of us cousins are grown up and married and have kids of our own. One of the hard parts living overseas is that Gwen is growing up so far away from her four cousins (my sister's kids), but I think about how I was able to forge a bond with my NY cousins and I know it can be done, especially since the older two will be coming for a visit in spring with Grandma, and I informed my sister years ago that when her kids reach high school age, I'm kidnapping them each for a semester or a year and bringing them over to live with us!
I'm so looking forward to Christmas this year for all the cousins and the cousins' kids to get together again; my sister's youngest is 5 months older than Gwen, and one of our cousins has a little girl 19 days younger than Gwen, I'm sure they'll have fun playing together!
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