Right Now with Jenn-o: Family

So I want my daughter, hopefully in the future my children, to know what it is to have roots and connections. I want them to feel the surrounding love of people that are connected to them. A connection that in my mind is a big fluffy afghan that has been pieced together from a group of crazy knitters, red here and blue there and oh my goodness what color is that! I simultaneously come from a big family and a small family. I only have one sibling, a sister, and my Mother has one sibling, a brother, but my Dad has five siblings, four brothers and a sister. I come from a big/small family. I get the best of both worlds the big loud raucous family holidays and the cozy intimate summer nights at the pool. My husband has brought his own goofy group of individuals he calls family and this week that group got a little bigger. We met his brother Jake and girlfriend Lauren. They were simply delightful. Yes, simply delightful. A brother that Terry did not have the privilege of growing up with but is a really interesting man to get to know. I was able to introduce another Uncle to my daughter and she has an added layer of fluffy afghan to snuggle in.

Family can come from anywhere at any time. Last Saturday we had no less than three parties to go to! That is a lot of celebrating and we did it in the true Miller fashion, running from place to place and eating. I just love that all of my family realize that parties are fun with balloons and streamers but as my nephew Gabriel once famously said, “It’s not a birthday without cake!” And to that I say, “Quite right!” Even if it was my birthday he was talking about because we had no cake. The next day I went to the Swap Meet with my friend April and as we were strolling through the aisles eyeballing wrap dresses and board books I started babbling about all of my family obligations that I had to do the day before and how nice it was today to just relax, I then realized that I had lumped her daughter’s birthday party into the “family obligations” that I was now relaxing from. I opened my big mouth to apologize; I felt like I had just insulted her party, she cut me off with a smile and a wave. “Don’t you dare apologize, I know what you mean it is nice to relax but it is also really great that you think of us as family.” And I do. That sort of caught me by surprise. I value my friends and their children, they have always been there for me when I needed them and I got to play with their babies any time I wanted a fix. I love being Aunt Jen to all of their kiddos. I have just always had “my family” those people related to me by blood or marriage and then “my friends” those people that have stuck to me throughout the years as if we all had sticky hands on each other’s butts. I was smacked in the head with the realization that these people are no longer my friends but my family. I know this is not an earth shattering revelation, many people have had this thought before me but I have not had this thought before. Um … what? You know what I mean. It was a new idea for me. No matter how many times I am told something if I don’t get it, and sometime I REALLY don’t get it, then I just won’t believe it. Something changed in my heart this weekend because although my head may have known that my friends were close to me and I valued them very much my heart had not yet felt that deep down snuggle of the afghan of family. I looked around and realized that my fluffy warm inviting afghan was folded up in places hiding more colors: fuchsia, turquoise and navy blue. My friends had been warming my butt! So I just want to say, “I love you and thanks for keeping me warm.”

Distance cannot “unmake” a family. For Easter I decided that I wanted to visit my Aunt Rhonda in Los Banos. My Uncle John is the pastor of a church there and I thought it would be just wonderful to go to his church on Easter Sunday; Allie would get to wear an Easter dress, sit in a pew and listen to her cousin lead the praise team in song. She would get to color eggs with Aunt Rhonda just like I did when I was a little girl. She would get to play with cousins, my cousins that are 10 years younger than me. These are the cousins that I got to play with like baby dolls. Sorry Barbie, Sally and Katie I got to practice changing diapers on you and learning just the right spot on my hip for carrying babies. You seem to have turned out alright so I must have learned pretty quickly how to do things right. Allie would get to play with Uncle John and have him fix her hair, he raised three girls and knows how to tame a few locks. So I scheduled time off and reserved a hotel room and blissfully anticipated the weekend to come. And you know what? It was AWESOME; the weekend was everything I imagined and more. Laid back, casual and cozy. My baby warmed up to everyone and reveled in all of the attention. She walked and stopped crawling showing off her new found skill to adoring clapping fans. I was snuggled in family fun as my Aunt and I made a Butterfinger pie then passed out mixer blades and spoons for licking. I just love walking into a living room with a mixing blade and ask, “You wanna lick this?” It is irresistible everyone says yes. Grandma sang “Yankee Doodle” to my little girl coaxing a grin then went in and stole some tickles. It was magical. Los Banos is not near my house it is about a 6 hour drive but the distance does not stop the love from coming out and dancing around us at these events.