The littlest cousin.
No, it's not the name of a children's book you somehow missed out on.
It's a description of this person:
My cousin Lauren.
So let's talk about my Dad's family shall we?
It's big.
My Dad has four sisters and two brothers and they all have children so...
I have a bunch of cousins.
I'm in the middle of the cousins.
Sort of.
See the oldest cousin is eleven years older than me and I'm eleven years older than the youngest cousin.
Confused?
Why are you people making me do math?
You know I'm gonna screw that up.
Just trust me.
It's a lot of cousins and I'm kind of in the middle.
So the youngest cousin is named Lauren:
Isn't she crazy beautiful?
So here is the deal with Lauren.
For the longest time I thought of her as the baby.
There she in in the middle.
Awww.
I remember when she was born.
I, like all the girl cousins, loved to hold her and play with her.
I'm wearing suspenders in this picture. Awesome.
The girl had a lot of big ole bows.
And we had a lot of big ole hair.
She was like our own personal doll.
I used to babysit her.
Her parents paid really well and it's one of the reasons now that I pay well.
Pay it forward (backward?) and all that stuff.
So since I always thought of her as the baby I never thought of her as actually growing up.
I mean, she was always just the baby.
But then one day about ten years ago she showed up at my Grandmom's house looking all svelte and mature and we all kinda looked at each other and said:
What the heck?
Did anyone else see that coming?
When did Lauren grow up?"
And apparently he likes cake.
At least that's what I assume is all over his face in this picture.
I hope she had something to do with it's placement all over his face.
Lauren is very fashionable.
And I was very pregnant in that picture.
Anyway...
I use the word fashionable and you think "she is good at putting on clothes" but I mean she is really good at putting things together.
She always looks like something that stepped out of the 'do' column of a fashion magazine.
Plus she has this cousin on the other side of the family named Kelly and they are both so stinkin' cute and they take lots of pictures and they make you want to go back to college and do it all over again.
Here we are chilling before my cousin Margaret got hitched.
See how tan she is?
It's because she lives at the beach.
Yep.
The beach.
She works in interior design.
Its probably why she is so fashionable.
Everyone wants her to move back to her home town.
Especially my Grandmom.
She has strong opinions on it which she frequently shares with me
"And then I told her 'well, you just need to come on back home!'".
Before she turned sixteen I used to let her drive my car in the country.
I was trying to win cool points.
It probably didn't work.
So I don't really know Lauren as a 'grown up' super well yet.
I mean we've done the e-mail thing, we talk at gatherings...
But see, thats the greatest thing about family!
She isn't going anywhere.
I mean, geographically she may go somewhere but..
She'll always be my cousin.
So, there's time.
Can I get a shout out for cousins?
And p.s. HAPPY BIRTHDAY LAUREN!
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Tomfoolery