Growing up with an immense extended family, double digit aunts and uncles on both maternal and paternal sides and each one having a minimum of 3 kids each... Yes, each one had at least 3 kids. Some aunts and uncles had much more while a few only had 3 or even less for a couple of them. Which means that in total, I have over 100 first cousins. Read that again just to wrap your head around that. 100 first cousins. And with the wide range in ages among my aunts and uncles meant that some of my oldest cousins are older than my youngest aunts and uncles. It's funny in that, as a kid you never think about such things. They're not even aunts and uncles, tios or tias. They're always referred to by first name, just like the other kids.
I'm not the oldest cousin from either sides of my family either. I think I fall somewhere along 5th or 6th on both sides. Come to think of it, I'm not even the oldest of dad's kids. I'm his 4th child if I'm being honest. But still one of the first generation to be born in the states. I can't even wrap my head at attempting to count how many 2nd and 3rd generation offspring there are from those 100+ cousins. Granted, several of them haven't had kids of their own just yet, but most of them are of age. I'd venture a guess that there's probably close to 150~200 first cousins once (and twice!) removed.
What I'm getting at with this brief review of my family tree is that as I've grown up, there has ALWAYS been kids around. Whether it's been immediate family, younger generation cousins, their kids, what have you, I've literally lived my life with kids always being around. Which is probably why kids running around playing has never really bothered me like I know some people do. About the only time kids come close to bothering me is when they're past fussy and just screeching, screaming, crying for no particular reason.
So what brought about this long preamble was to maybe explain this weird thing that I've noticed happen since pretty much forever. And that is, kids love me. It's funny and probably sounds a little conceited but kids somehow end up being drawn to me. Often times, the younger they are, the more often they approach me. My brother even once told someone that I was the 'Baby Whisperer.'
With the extended family, the younger cousins would end up coming to see me in my room whenever family came to visit. Maybe it was the video games I always had, the room decor, whatever. But even as I got older, the kids kept coming forward. And while there were a handful of little cousins who were scared of me... hah, when I was in my late teens/early 20s, one cousin in particular had become so scare of me, her family would use me as a threat to get her to behave. "If you don't clean your room, Louie's coming to see you!" I became like the boogie man for her. But that was the outlier. More often than not, kids, babies especially, would happily sit in my lap and before long, they started poking my face with their chubby little hands. And it never bothered me, I enjoyed having them around if I'm being honest. When my brother and his girlfriend started having kids, I LOVED having them around, spoiling them as much as possible. Same with my sister's boys. But even beyond that, the reference I made about my brother calling me a "Baby Whisperer" was when we were at Disneyland with his girlfriend's sister's family. Their daughter was a year younger than my nephew, maybe 4 or 5 at the time, and while we were all in the queue waiting for a ride, the little girl just walked up to me, put her hands up and waited for me to pick her up and carry her. Apparently, she had never interacted with anyone in that manner before, usually keeping to herself and my nephew. And yet, here she came up to me, someone she hadn't really met before, sure I saw her as a baby because of the family connection, but we never interacted before. And now she wanted me to carry her while we were waiting in line.
Something similar happened again a few weeks ago when I was at Disneyland and my editor was there with his family. I joined them for a bit as a 'tour guide' and after an hour, his little 5-year-old started talking to me. Both my editor and the mom were kind of speechless because the little girl always keeps to herself around strangers, very shy. And she was having a conversation with me about her day at Disneyland. I just kind of shrugged at my editor and said, 'It happens.'
Obviously my little downstairs neighbor who kept asking me to join her in the community pool a couple of years ago. She'll still come up and give me a hug when I see her around. I think of my friend's daughter and when we would have our Disney days, she would hold my hand and want to play while in line for rides.
When it comes to my dating life, I've long reached the point where meeting single moms was part and parcel with dating. Especially once I reached my 30s, meeting a girl who DIDN'T have a child was unlikely. But again, it didn't bother me. And often times, their kids would take to me before mom was even sure of where we stood in our relationship. I was always a little uneasy once a potential paramour wanted me to meet her kids because in the back of my mind, I kind of knew what was going to happen if things didn't work out between us. And sure enough, it did several times. Girls tried to push a relationship before it was fully ready, "Oh, you need to meet my kids!" and then a few weeks later, things would sour and now the kids would be gone from my life. One of the many girls I dated had 3 kids, all under 10 (RED FLAG!!!) and I was uneasy when she wanted me to meet them after just a couple of weeks of dating. But she pushed for it, I met them and I'm pretty certain they were fond of me. The oldest one, Alan, 10 but he also had some severe medical issues going on. But the kid also felt comfortable enough with me that when we would be out and about as a family, he would ask that I help him when he needed to use the restroom. Holly was so happy with that development. I felt awful when she and I broke up a few weeks later.
And the one little girl who became such a large part of my life. She was already 11 when I started dating her mom (and breaking up and getting back together ad nauseum over the years). The first go-round with her mom, she was very hesitant, tentative around me for the first few months while her mom and I dated. Honestly, when her mom and I broke up that first time, I didn't think much about it because she seemed so distant. But when her mom and I touched base again... Her mom had already started seeing another guy but I was going to be in the neighborhood and if she wanted to meet up for a movie, the 3 of us, totally platonic, that would be ok. We met up at the theater but she hadn't told her daughter I was going to be there. Avoid confusing her since mom was dating another guy. They turned the corner at the outdoor mall and her daughter rushed right past me to look at the movie posters, she didn't register I was even there. I exchanged pleasantries with mom and she finally called her daughter, "Hey, look who's here!" The little girl turned around, saw me and came RUNNING to leap into my arms for a hug, almost bowling us both over.
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