Family day with Dick and Jane

Ah, Family Day. I know, every day should be family day when you’re part of a family. Or so I’ve heard. But Family Day makes me think about how much I need to have one day to focus on embracing the fun side of having a family. Since 2007, LOML and I have made a special weekend of this Family Day thing. This year, our Mississauga son, his fiancée and her child braved the wild winter and Friday the 13th weather to spend Family Day with us. Fiancée and her daughter have wiggled their way into our family. Honorary GDOM, Kaitlyn, stands at attention by the kitchen doorframe to mark her progress on the family height chart, and has been doing so since her very first visit. Like the rest of the children in this family, she sometimes even stands on her tippy-toes to impress us with her upward progress. It’s as important to mark the date and her height on that doorframe as it is for her to tell us about her week in school. Often, she barely has her coat off and she’s planning our weekend around games of hideand- seek, Barbies, stories and what we’ll bake for dessert. Sometimes, the excitement of being here brings on a bit of dancing and singing. The five-year-old’s silliness accelerates when her real grandpa, who happens to live in Belleville, decides to drop by for a visit. Real grandpa, aka Grandpopcorn, has become a part of our family too. Go figure.

When we were a much younger couple, LOML and I had a very traditional idea of what our family should be. We’d figured, like a lot of y’all, it ought to be a mom, a dad, a child or two or three, a couple of sets of grandparents, some aunts, some uncles and a few cousins.

All of these people had to be related to us by marriage or by blood. We’re proud to say we embrace a woman who can only be described as Grandma Marianne to one of ours but not the others. One child has a Momma Sue who attended her graduation and she also has Auntie Lynda, who misses her with all of her heart. Momma Sue and Auntie Lynda are friends who have become family. There are also blood-related aunts, uncles and cousins. And then? And then we had room to include an extra daughter or two here, a son there and a couple of distant cousins who live five doors down.

Sometimes our children parted from a partner or de-spoused a spouse. A lot of families might have dropped those people from the Christmas card list—we just added more to it. LOML and I have become hoarders of family. Sometimes, LOML and I have a coffee, shake our heads and vow we’ll have to stop explaining ourselves, our children, our children’s former partners, our children’s new partners, our children’s children, our siblings and the host of grandparents who populate our home for days like Family Day. Where’s the fun in that?

Family Day is more than a break from the nine-to-five and the humdrum. Family Day is so much more fun when it’s more than bloodrelated or biological folks. Our Family Day is a great time to kick back, let our hair down and enjoy our large, noisy, loving definition of family. I hope your Family Day was terrific.

theresa@wellingtontimes.ca