Kissin' Cousins

The whole cousin relationship is an odd one, isn't it? Dependent initially on one's parents' relationships with their siblings, the cousin thing varies from family to family and doesn't mean the same thing to any two people. I have five cousins--two who lived in Alaska while we were growing up and with whom we had pretty much no contact (yet I do remember one at my grandma's funeral who was clearly on acid or some other combo of drugs because he told my little sister that lizards were crawling out from beneath the casket), two who lived nearby and with whom we had sporadic, emotionally-charged contact that changed as my mom and aunt got along or didn't (as adults they're more dysfunctional than most, so I stay away), and one we saw every summer and with whom we were reasonably close for a while; a lot of that has faded away with the passing of my other grandma, though--we hardly hear anything from Pennsylvania these days. In contrast, my college roommate grew up right alongside her cousins and considers them more like siblings than anything else.

My sister and I had a rocky relationship growing up, one which I am still made to feel guilty about from time to time because I wasn't the loving, inclusive big sister that, in retrospect, I wish I had been. As a teenager, I would have predicted that my sis and I would barely speak as adults, that our children would see each other only on major holidays and at funerals. I would have been so very wrong. Happily, my sister and I speak almost daily, and having kids around the same time as one another has meant that we can provide them with a new version of the cousin relationship. Vacationing together was great because the girls played together and entertained themselves, formed little bonds and shared secrets--it was the stuff of childhood, the kind of relationships I wish for them to always have.

The only problem is that Clementine has developed a serious Abby jones, one that can't be easily satisfied now that vacay is over and we're living a five-hour drive away from the beloved object of her obsession. On vacation, each morning darling C would wake up, lift her sleep-heavy head with her crazy, matted bed head, look to the door and say "Abby?" OK, one morning she said "cheese," but the rest of the time it was all Abby. Closer to nap time, this would become more of a whine, "Aaaabyyyy," and often ended with her collapsed in front of the door alternating Abby with "out! out!" I was afraid of what it would be like at home: temper tantrums and fits that couldn't be assuaged with promises of Abby sightings later in the day, meals when C would demand to sit next to an Abby we couldn't produce. But it hasn't been like that. Well, not exactly.

Instead of begging for Abby, Clementine has turned Abby into a word that serves many purposes. Sure, she's still Abby the person we talk to on any phone or phone-like toy or device, we still walk around and identify her in all the pictures (and the younger Nora, which Clementine pronounces "No-la," as well--Nora's not forgotten but is rather a follow-up like "Abby, Abby, Abby, No-la") and conjure her when I ask silly questions like "Do you know who we're going to see today?" But she has also become a strange noun that refers to the things C associates with Abby: the two hand-me-down hoodies from Abby, for example, one of which I found wrapped around C in her sleep last night. When she wants to wear one, she points and says "Abby" so definitively I start to believe that all hoodies should be called Abbies; "Do you want to wear your Abby?" I ask. Clementine has boots that she calls Abby (thank heavens for spring and the retirement of the boots), and she has books and toys that are Abby as well, though I'm not always sure why. She launches into long diatribes full of words that I don't yet understand and peppers her sentences with Abby. Sometimes she'll answer a question like "Do you want pasta or meat for dinner?" with a simple "Abby," nodding her head and sporting a very earnest look. One of her kitchen utensils is sometimes Abby, and I'm just counting the days until we rechristen all the stuffed animals Abby as well. Incidentally, the laptop computer is called No-la mostly because C remembers looking at pictures of Nora on it, and the upstairs computer is "dancey ducky" for the little beat bot I found one day while reading another blog.

Let's be clear that I'm not complaining. I think this Abby obsession is sweet, and I'm trying very hard not to abuse it and make it lose its magic. I'll cop to flexing it once or twice as an "Abby doesn't scream in her bath, so why are you?" or "Do you think Abby would be happy that you aren't going to bed?" But I'm not proud and don't intend to do that again. I love this little cousin relationship and wish someone would invent a super-speed transport between Chicago and Detroit so we didn't feel so damn far away.