things PC is saying and identifying

at the ball park

PC cannot articulate lots of words well just yet, but he's showing increasing ability to match our words with the correct objects. He knows where to find teeth and the tongue, he can find the clock in any room, and of course, the fan. He has some sort of magnetism with fans. In  the past few weeks, in addition to mastering "so big" (hands in the air, as if you don't care), he also learned to high-five and low five, and to blow on hot tea and coffee. Yesterday I asked him to "get the ball," and he walked directly to it, grabbed it, and turned back to me with satisfaction. His favorite food is bananas, and he will occasionally say "nana" in reference to one, but more often, he just points at it. Who needs words when the adults get you the banana (or anything else) when you point at it?

family reunion

PC's great-grandmother was the sixth child in a family of thirteen--neatly sandwiched between five brothers and sisters. She grew up in a big house in small-town Illinois in a farming family, at a time when folks might have been motivated to have eleven kids for the sheer reason that a big family could make farming easier.

We found out these things and all sorts of other interesting things about C's side of the family during a trip to Illinois for a family reunion last week. That Uncle Stub has been the most (re)productive of the eleven brothers and sisters, with 33 children and great-grandchildren. That the wildest of the bunch was probably Craig, who once challenged a local boy to a duel with a boy and arrow, and after the other boy missed, calmly shot an arrow right the other boy's bicep. That Uncle Bernard, who is in his late eighties, still lives on the family farm with 2000 acres of corn and soy beans, and that his brother, Larry, lives 300 yards down the road. Which is dirt. If all of this sounds exotic, you're probably not from the Midwest, or you don't know any farm families. Like many farm families, only a few of the eleven chose to follow their parents into the business, owing to the trend toward corporate farming and to the desires of many baby boomers to move to cities. Many of Great-Grandma Desyl's siblings still live in Illinois, but others, like GG Desyl, stayed in California after their families left Illinois in the fifties and headed west to find work.

About 130 people showed up for this reunion, which is held every five years at a Legion Club in Reynolds. The format was potluck, and when we got there slightly before the designated starting time, noon, people were already drinking beer and talking. The food selection was a delight for me--diced potato/cheese casserole with corn flakes on top, lots of deviled eggs, fruit salads, potato salads, other mayonnaise-based salads, and fried chicken, which was very popular. This didn't seem like a terribly stereotypical spread of Midwestern food, though I am not an expert on such things. Of particular pride for us were the tomatoes, 50 of which PC's Grandpa and Lola transported from Richmond, cut up, and served. Several in the family commented that they were better than the tomatoes anyone else was growing in the Midwest, even on the farms. (PC--your grandparents know something about gardening.) When the food was finished, C's uncle Don turned on the Legion's PA system and invited people to share their talents, a tradition at the gathering. The highlights here were a boy of twelve or so who sang a version of Amazing Grace that was beautifully clear and stylistically advanced, a great aunt who played accordion, a teen who rattled a few adults with his electric guitar, and C's cousin Becky, who absolutely killed with a couple of jazz and blues tunes.

Clearly, entering into your spouse's family network of 130 can be confusing. Carla commented that she did not know most of the attendees. But the name tag system (pictured above) and a few hours of eating, drinking, and sharing talents went a long way toward helping us understand where PC comes from and where his family has been. And we only scratched the surface.