Father's Daze

The happy couple may have been the stars of the wedding, but they were nearly upstaged by their cousin from Wisconsin at the party a few days later.

Actually, I’m not sure if Aiden is their first cousin, twice removed; their second cousin, once removed; or their third cousin with his tonsils removed — genealogy is just one more -ology that I never mastered. Actually, I do know it’s not the last one — Aiden hasn’t had his tonsils removed yet.

We were in New Hampshire earlier this month for our nephew’s wedding, but because the ceremony was held at the home of the bride’s aunt and uncle, with limited space, no cousins — first, second, third or whatever — were invited. They were instead invited to the party that followed two days in Warwick, New York, where I grew up and where the rest of my family still lives.

Alex and Julia came out for that party, along with Aiden, since they figured it was time for the family out east to meet the little guy — and it had been a few years since they had seen the family out east as well.

The three of them rolled into Warwick while we still in New Hampshire at the post-wedding party there — when we’ve got an excuse to party, we party a lot.

It meant that the other cousins — two of our nieces, to be exact — got to baby sit for Aiden while his parents recuperated from their all-night drive to get there.

For some reason, neither of them had to be asked twice to provide that service.

There are now several pictures on Facebook of the nieces feeding Aiden ice cream and what appears to be a cupcake, with the niece who posted the pictures blaming it all on the other one.

It’s apparent that neither one of them is a grandparent, because first of all grandparents never post incriminating evidence like that and second, we just blame each other, which is the truth.

When everybody rolled back into town throughout the day Sunday for the party Monday, Aiden started charming the rest of the family.

Since it was the Fourth of July, somebody had some sparklers to celebrate the holiday and Aiden found them to be quite captivating. He even got some help waving a few of them around from his newly discovered family and he wound up staying up well past his bedtime.

He was up and bright as last night’s sparklers for Monday’s party, though.

There was a big guest list for the party, with lots of family, friends, neighbors and so forth — both the groom and the bride had grown up and went to school in Warwick, so they had lots of people to invite — and Aiden made sure to check everybody out.

He also checked out the food, of course, but he gave it only a cursory examination, as he was far too busy making the rounds of all the guests.

Besides, whenever he decided he needed something to eat, or something to drink, there were plenty of cousins there to get him whatever he wanted. It’s no wonder he took such a liking to all his East Coast cousins.

The three of them stayed out in Warwick for a few more days after we left before driving back — carrying all of Terry’s purchases that she couldn’t get on the plane — and Alex and Julia had to keep checking to make sure that Aiden was in the car when they left and hadn’t been kidnapped by one of his cousins.