The importance of family

We just returned from a quick 48 hour trip up to Detroit, where my husband is from. Arnie is from a very small family. His father only had one sister, his mom an only child. He only has one brother. This is in sharp contrast to my family, which is well "huge" (think Italian catholic). I remember being a kid and trying to keep all my great aunts and uncles straight, I think at one point I had over 10 of them (it started with 18 but some had passed away before I knew them). But I was around them all the time, as most of them lived in my home town and many worked in our family business.

Now that we don't live in a town near either of our families, you realize the importance of exposing your children to their family. So this weekend, even though we are going up to Detroit again for Thanksgiving, we all got in the van and headed up to attend Arnie's first cousins, daughters Bat Mitzvah. We really don't get a chance to see Arnie's first cousins much, so it seemed like the perfect excuse.

We began "educating" the kids on who they were going to see a couple of weeks before. Arnie's one cousin lives about 2 blocks from his parents, so we see them and their three children the most frequently. Because of this we used them as our reference point. So the girl whose party we are going to is their first cousin, just like P&A, or E, K, J & J are your first cousins. Needless to say we got lots of blank stares back at us.

In the end they had a total blast. While I still think they are totally confused, and J (whose bat mitzvah it was) likely had no idea who we were, the adults all had it figured out and had the chance to catch up a bit. Already the kids are asking if we can walk over to "their cousins" house when we go back up for Thanksgiving.

So I am glad we took the time and headed north (to snow!). The kids likely will have no memory of the event, except for the cool dance prizes they one and t-shirt to remind them. But for the next few weeks I am sure it will be all we talk about.