The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

They’re coming. They of the ferocious appetites, who prowl through the kitchen two hours after a meal, who chug milk by gallons and devour hamburgers and pasta and eggs and bread and, actually, vegetables.

For the past seventeen summers, they’ve descended on us. This used to mean changing diapers and tying on bibs. In those first years, they were easily entertained with backyard sprinklers and Plasma cars and Razor scooters. For hours they painted with water—the walls of the garage, the picnic table, the doors all around the house—and marveled at their handiwork. They colored pictures as we told Bible stories.

They went to bed early back then, and shook us awake at the crack of dawn. During their long afternoon naps, we’d catch our breath. Now we can breathe long into the morning. Their internal clocks now hold them to their cots. And as they sleep on and on, their pituitary glands release growth hormones. The tables have turned. Now it is our turn to shake them awake.

They may slog through their mornings. But at what is our usual bedtime, they become fully alive. And if we want them to talk with us, we need to adjust to their schedule. It’s like we change time zones without leaving home.

We’ve traded in Plasma cars for roller coasters and kayaks for sprinklers and crayons for discussions on how to bring a bit of heaven to earth. We take them to outdoor dramas—this year Trumpet in the Land, the story of the brutal massacre of 96 pacifist Moravian Delaware Indians by an American militia. And we cook together and do dishes and visit their great-grandparents, just three blocks away.

Cousin Week, I know, won’t last forever. We’re headed for our dotage and they for adulthood. But for this time of life, Cousin Week, for me, is the most wonderful time of the year.