Day 10. Write about spending time with a baby or child under the age of two.
Traditions are a beautiful thing.
My family is close in spirit, if not in miles. So every year for Thanksgiving, we cash in the older generation's timeshares and gather for a week in an ever-changing pre-determined location in the lower 48. The last couple of years, our family's been getting smaller. But traditions are traditions, and family is family. If anything, our losses bring us closer together.
As do our gains. For this year, as we all drove up to the Berkshires, we were joined by little Anya, my oldest brother's beautiful little daughter.
I know Scintilla is a storytelling project. And I wish I could sit here and tell you a tale of that week, craft my sentences for setup and impact, deliver punchlines and payouts. But I can't. I can't because every time I think of that little half-Asian, half-Irish nugget of giggles and poop, I smile like I'm halfway through a cheesesteak, and I can't think of anything else but the goofy-ass way she claps when she's excited for like five minutes straight.
I spent the week playing Catpaw and Floop. Teaching her words as I held up the little pumpkin she kept chewing on ("This is an octopus. Can you say 'octopus'?"), murmuring to her in French as I held her ("Qui est ma petite loutre? C'est toi?"), and crooning to her when she got fussy ("So much drama in the LBC, it's kinda hard bein' Snoop D-O-double-G..."). I'm going to be that uncle. The one who spoils that little girl rotten. Who sneaks her fried chicken when her mom's on a health kick, who shows her where her daddy hides the keys to the Beemer.
Because this is what family is. We mourn those that pass, we weep to see them go. But we celebrate those who come, who will carry on our stories and laughter. We teach them our principles and our truths and our mischief, that they may share their tales in Scintilla '43 for their friends, old and new, to hear.
Traditions are a beautiful thing.
My family is close in spirit, if not in miles. So every year for Thanksgiving, we cash in the older generation's timeshares and gather for a week in an ever-changing pre-determined location in the lower 48. The last couple of years, our family's been getting smaller. But traditions are traditions, and family is family. If anything, our losses bring us closer together.
As do our gains. For this year, as we all drove up to the Berkshires, we were joined by little Anya, my oldest brother's beautiful little daughter.
I know Scintilla is a storytelling project. And I wish I could sit here and tell you a tale of that week, craft my sentences for setup and impact, deliver punchlines and payouts. But I can't. I can't because every time I think of that little half-Asian, half-Irish nugget of giggles and poop, I smile like I'm halfway through a cheesesteak, and I can't think of anything else but the goofy-ass way she claps when she's excited for like five minutes straight.
I spent the week playing Catpaw and Floop. Teaching her words as I held up the little pumpkin she kept chewing on ("This is an octopus. Can you say 'octopus'?"), murmuring to her in French as I held her ("Qui est ma petite loutre? C'est toi?"), and crooning to her when she got fussy ("So much drama in the LBC, it's kinda hard bein' Snoop D-O-double-G..."). I'm going to be that uncle. The one who spoils that little girl rotten. Who sneaks her fried chicken when her mom's on a health kick, who shows her where her daddy hides the keys to the Beemer.
Because this is what family is. We mourn those that pass, we weep to see them go. But we celebrate those who come, who will carry on our stories and laughter. We teach them our principles and our truths and our mischief, that they may share their tales in Scintilla '43 for their friends, old and new, to hear.
oh my lord. that SMILE. i'm happier just looking at that picture. she's precious. :)
ReplyDeleteI was never much of a baby person until the day I met her. : )
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