Jack’s Baby Shower

One of the rotten things about living far away from my family is that I really don't get to see my extended relatives very much.  Our extended family was quite close knit when I was growing up, and their VIBRANT personalities had a lot of influence over my developing identity in childhood.  It's difficult to coordinate seeing everyone on our little trips back to North Dakota, and it is very rare that I get to bask in all those personalities at one table, as I so often was able to as a child.  

My maternal aunts were extremely goofy at the shower.  It could be that they are always so goofy, and that I have just forgotten in my great absence of seeing them.  Anyway, I did a lot of laughing while I sat across from them.  My own daughter told me to stop laughing so much because I was embarrassing her, and I thought to myself that MY laughing was next to nothing compared to the crazy stunts MY mother and one of her sisters in particular pulled while I was growing up, but I guess it's all relative, right?

You can bet that if the room hadn't been so crowded, I would have been pestering them a lot more with my camera.

First of all, this is my beautiful, red-headed cousin Lisa.  She's brilliant.  I was so happy when she was born and there was another girl-kid in the family.  Lisa, however, hates the lens on my camera.  She says it looks like a giant eye.  And then she does this.

I'm patient, though, and if I wait long enough, she has to put her hands down.  Someday she'll learn that its better just to LOOK at the lens and get it over with.

Next, we have my Auntie Nannie.  Auntie Nannie was my math and social studies teacher in grades 7-12.  She was crazy in school and out of school.  She's very competitive.  Even at baby shower games.  Here she is trying very, very hard to guess what kind of baby food was in this jar.  Auntie Nannie cooks casserole.  When I was in kindergarten she forced me to eat spaghetti sauce, and I threw up all over her dining room table.  After that she believed me when I said I really didn't care for red sauce.  And I still don't.  

Finally, there's my Aunt Joni.  Aunt Joni is very polite in all circumstances.  When I was little she'd make me orange floats and blueberry muffins when I went to visit her house.  She lived about an hour and a half away, so visiting her was a very big deal to a preschooler.  Aunt Joni doesn't like shower games very much.  She pretended to do the shower games, but didn't really.  Of course, it didn't help that Aunt Nancy, next to her, was so distracting.  I think Aunt Nancy was trying to be distracting so she could win the shower games.  

Aunt Joni likes fancy dishes.  She was a biology teacher, and when I was in fifth grade she gave me one of my FAVORITE birthday presents ever:  a box of prepared microscope slides.  I was so excited, and spent hours gazing through the lens of my microscope at fly legs and slices of tissue and saltwater sponges.  

She does not, however, like shopping at the Goodwill store.  Maybe the sport of thrifting will grow on her one day?  It's never too late in life to make changes!  Ha!

Aunt Joni was afraid that I was catching her with her eyes closed in all the pictures I was taking, so she was bound and determined to have one picture where her eyeballs were showing.  That, my friends, was very, very funny.  My stomach hurt, really hurt, from laughing so much at the baby shower.

I think my sister-in-law's side of the family was about ready to kick our noisy table right out of that crowded room.  We were a boisterous crowd.