I am lucky enough to have two nephews and two nieces, on either side of our family, and I get to see them all regularly. My kids have four cousins and they love spending time with them all.
They all mean a lot to me. They’re in very different stages in life, and I like to know what they’re up to, what’s happening with them. I have my oldest nephew currently house hunting, and then my youngest niece currently weaning – as I say, very different stages in life!
Over the summer holidays, my two are off to stay at my brother’s home for a couple of nights as my 3 year old niece is very keen to have them stay with her. The kids will be at her beck and call and they are very good with her.
She adores seeing her big cousins and they all play together. My kids will do whatever she wants to do and she thinks they are hilarious and fun.
I love to see it. I love seeing how good they are with their little cousins, especially as there is a fair age gap.
Of course, my two have had brilliant role models to help prepare them for being ‘big cousins’.
There is a similar age gap with my nephews, with my children being the younger cousins in this case.
My nephews have always been so good with them, playing with them week in, week out. They let them climb all over them, played whatever games they asked them to and even now, at 28 and 21, will go play outside with them if they fancy a bit of garden cricket. They are endlessly patient with them and my son does like to message them about gaming and football, and they do keep on replying to him so they must love him!
Their patience with them has never wavered. All throughout their teen years they would have fun with my two, and when I say ‘have fun’ I mean fun for my kids, I don’t know that it was always as much fun for the boys! And whilst I am sure that their little cousins were exhausting at times and got on their nerves some days, they didn’t ever show it.
Happy memories of Sunday afternoons and special occasions aside, they were also good enough to come to the kids’ sports day once. This will never be forgotten, as they were vocal in their support and we had quite the cheering section that year!
And things come full circle as the other day I was chatting to my sister in law about my oldest niece starting school and her sports day. As luck would have it, it’s going to fall when my girl is off school, post GCSEs, so she is already planning on showing up and supporting her cousin.
It’s fun to see them together and it’s good to see their relationships with one another shifting as they all get older.
Cousins. It’s a special, quite unique relationship, I think.
Forever intertwined with these familial links. I like to think that as us parents age, they have all got each other, now and forever.
Love those nephews and nieces of mine.
cousins are great. as a child I only really saw 1 set of mine, but still see the eldest sometimes now as she lives near my best friend’s parents. but my son is so lucky as 5 of his 6 cousins still live within a couple of miles. he’s the youngest at 13 (by 2 school years) the oldest, 24, is one of his godparents. my only concern is they’ll all be planning on how they’ll be taking him out drinking when he’s a bit older. I’m not looking forward to that.
There is a chance that that’ll happen! How lovely for him to have them all close by.