![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Cousin has four kids, 14, 11, 8, and 5 and they are cute and a lot of fun.
Also, pretty good kids.
Miss 14 is away on camp and doesn't get back until after I leave, which is a pity. I was looking forward to talking with her some.
Mr 11 is so very much my cousin all over again. Maybe a little more pedantic; he's trying to teach me how to play Magic: The Gathering, and has a habit of correcting himself. He wants to teach me right and be thorough in doing it, but sometimes that's not the best tack to take. (Particularly with me, who will happily wing it until someone tells me otherwise.)
Miss 8: "I wish we had a male praying mantis and a female praying mantis!"
Mum: "You just want to see him eaten alive."
Miss 8: (gleefully) "YES!"
Mr 5 is the family clown, and the showman, and apparently he LOVES babies and wishes they had a baby (looks at Mum and sighs loudly). He has excellent eyerolling skills and a delightful laugh.
They're pretty responsible kids: at one point this morning before we went out, I was playing with the youngest (well, trying to: he doesn't know the rules and doesn't fully understand how it works) and the older two vanished and went quiet. Mum was writing on her computer in the bedroom. I went and peeked into their rooms (Misses 14 and 8 share, and so do Mr 11 and Mr 5), and both Mr 11 and Miss 8 were sitting on their beds, reading. And when Mr 5 pops in and starts making noises, Miss 8 only pointed out that she lost her place in the book, while Mr 11 just asked Mr 5 if he won the game. (I said "Yes, he won," and he solemnly said, "I understand.")
There's screen time, but it's limited and they're not always pestering to be on it. I'm sitting at the long dining table, where about a square metre is taken up with a veritable army of LEGO 'monsters'. I don't know what the thing actually is, but apparently it's made by LEGO and you can kind of put together something that looks like a cross between a kaiju and a Jaeger. Mostly made by Mr 5.
It's kind of interesting, too, watching them interact. There've been a few fights, and a few 'mean moments', but they go away (sometimes are ordered to step away and go to their room) and calm down, and usually they come back and apologise without being ordered to. It helps that mum was a teacher and both mum and dad have a strong sense of right and decent behaviour and will enforce it, even on the younger ones.
Miss 8 accidentally hit Mr 5 in the face with her bag while swinging it wildly around as they were heading out the door a couple of hours ago for a playdate, and she was trying to use her apology as a silencer: "Mummy doesn't care, because I said sorry!" Mummy corrected her on that front, with a lesson on how being sorry doesn't change that she hit her brother in the face, even if it was an accident, and that it still hurts, and she's not allowed to use the apology to make him be quiet, like it never happened.
Sometimes I think it's a pity more people didn't learn that lesson when they were 8 years old.
I think (hope, pray) that they'll grow up to be siblings who actually like each other. Barring any major trauma, they probably will.
My cousin and I are the same age - he's all of five months younger, and it's his birthday this week - but we haven't spent much time together since we were teenagers and that was mostly in church groups. It's a bit funny seeing all the traits I remember in him as teenagers, except grown to adulthood. (And seeing them very much in his oldest son. And being reminded of his dad, my uncle, and the way he speaks and acts.) And it makes me wonder a little what traits people see in me that remain from back then, the traits I've inherited/developed from my mum. Obvs I don't have children to pass on to, but...it's kind of interesting all the same.
Honestly, this family is one of those ones that you'd expect to be hiding a deep, terrible secret if it was a movie. :)
Also, pretty good kids.
Miss 14 is away on camp and doesn't get back until after I leave, which is a pity. I was looking forward to talking with her some.
Mr 11 is so very much my cousin all over again. Maybe a little more pedantic; he's trying to teach me how to play Magic: The Gathering, and has a habit of correcting himself. He wants to teach me right and be thorough in doing it, but sometimes that's not the best tack to take. (Particularly with me, who will happily wing it until someone tells me otherwise.)
Miss 8: "I wish we had a male praying mantis and a female praying mantis!"
Mum: "You just want to see him eaten alive."
Miss 8: (gleefully) "YES!"
Mr 5 is the family clown, and the showman, and apparently he LOVES babies and wishes they had a baby (looks at Mum and sighs loudly). He has excellent eyerolling skills and a delightful laugh.
They're pretty responsible kids: at one point this morning before we went out, I was playing with the youngest (well, trying to: he doesn't know the rules and doesn't fully understand how it works) and the older two vanished and went quiet. Mum was writing on her computer in the bedroom. I went and peeked into their rooms (Misses 14 and 8 share, and so do Mr 11 and Mr 5), and both Mr 11 and Miss 8 were sitting on their beds, reading. And when Mr 5 pops in and starts making noises, Miss 8 only pointed out that she lost her place in the book, while Mr 11 just asked Mr 5 if he won the game. (I said "Yes, he won," and he solemnly said, "I understand.")
There's screen time, but it's limited and they're not always pestering to be on it. I'm sitting at the long dining table, where about a square metre is taken up with a veritable army of LEGO 'monsters'. I don't know what the thing actually is, but apparently it's made by LEGO and you can kind of put together something that looks like a cross between a kaiju and a Jaeger. Mostly made by Mr 5.
It's kind of interesting, too, watching them interact. There've been a few fights, and a few 'mean moments', but they go away (sometimes are ordered to step away and go to their room) and calm down, and usually they come back and apologise without being ordered to. It helps that mum was a teacher and both mum and dad have a strong sense of right and decent behaviour and will enforce it, even on the younger ones.
Miss 8 accidentally hit Mr 5 in the face with her bag while swinging it wildly around as they were heading out the door a couple of hours ago for a playdate, and she was trying to use her apology as a silencer: "Mummy doesn't care, because I said sorry!" Mummy corrected her on that front, with a lesson on how being sorry doesn't change that she hit her brother in the face, even if it was an accident, and that it still hurts, and she's not allowed to use the apology to make him be quiet, like it never happened.
Sometimes I think it's a pity more people didn't learn that lesson when they were 8 years old.
I think (hope, pray) that they'll grow up to be siblings who actually like each other. Barring any major trauma, they probably will.
My cousin and I are the same age - he's all of five months younger, and it's his birthday this week - but we haven't spent much time together since we were teenagers and that was mostly in church groups. It's a bit funny seeing all the traits I remember in him as teenagers, except grown to adulthood. (And seeing them very much in his oldest son. And being reminded of his dad, my uncle, and the way he speaks and acts.) And it makes me wonder a little what traits people see in me that remain from back then, the traits I've inherited/developed from my mum. Obvs I don't have children to pass on to, but...it's kind of interesting all the same.
Honestly, this family is one of those ones that you'd expect to be hiding a deep, terrible secret if it was a movie. :)