Saturday, February 05, 2011

Have I Ever Walked You Through My Family on Here?

I had friends over in December, and some questions people had about who's who (and questions that led me to believe they weren't sure how to take my brother's comments on Facebook) made me think I should probably make a sort of cast of characters or something.

I'm not feeling well, I don't want to think to hard, but I want to write something, so this will do for now.

First, the sibs, oldest to youngest:

Eddie lives back home. He's 18 years my senior (or somewhere in that neighborhood--see Dane if you want the actual number of days). Most of his Facebook posts are about cooking, and most of the time what he's cooking sounds pretty tasty. It's still not enough to make me want to move back home, however. The commute to work would be hellish.

Lynne (Rusty, Say) lives in Platte City. She's 16 years my senior and like a second mother to me, as she looked after me a lot while Mom was in the hospital having Dane, and I think just generally for a long time there she looked after me. She has three daughters, and two grandchildren. More on them later.

Todd lives in Jefferson city with his wife Anne. He's a doctor. He's six years my senior. Yes, there was a gap of 10 years between Lynne and Todd. They have two kids, one of each gender. More on them later.

Wade lives in California. He's three years my senior and tends to put humorous comments on things I put on Facebook--although sometimes they seem more... um... mean than they really are. I actually enjoy them. So nobody discourage him.

Dane lives in Leawood. He's eighteen months my junior, and has a great mind for calculations, dates, and The Price is Right.

Ruth lives in Leawood as well (she and Dane live in a house together). She is three years my junior and has a blog where she doesn't ramble as much as I do. You should be over there reading it instead of this one, really, but since you're here, finish this post first.

Sara lives in Kansas City (north of the river, like me) with her partner, Kathy. They have two daughters and three grandchildren. I paused there to figure out semantics, so if Sara wants the semantics to read differently, she can let us all know with comments. Sara is five years my junior. She's the baby.

I have six nieces, one nephew, three great-nieces, and two great-nephews.

Leslie is my oldest niece and Say's oldest daughter. She is four years my junior, and has one daughter. She lives in Platte City.

Peggy is my next-oldest niece, and Say's middle daughter. She is... um... six years my junior, I think. Somebody call me out on that if I'm wrong. I'm not Dane. I can't remember half the stuff he thought of just today. She lives in Platte City.

Carrie is the next niece in line, and she's Say's youngest daughter. She has one son. She is... well, I want to say seven years my junior, but at this point I have no clue. She lives in Omaha.

Elizabeth is the next niece. She is married to Kevin. She's my niece via Sara. She has one daughter and one son.

Melanie is Elizabeth's younger sister. She has a daughter.

Jordan is my first great-niece. She is Leslie's daughter. She's older than her first-cousins-once-removed mentioned below (Adam and Alison).

Adam is the only nephew I have. He plays the guitar, but not on the MTV just yet. He's Todd's son.

Alison is my youngest niece. She is Todd's daughter. She likes to read mystery books. I know this because I had no clue what sort of book to buy her at Christmas, so I got her a gift card. She informed me she liked mystery books.

Hannah is my next great-niece. She is Elizabeth's daughter. I can never remember if she's slightly older than Binx, or slightly younger than him. I went with slightly older, but--as always--I could be very wrong.

Zach is my first great-nephew. He is Carrie's son. I call him Binx or Binxy most of the time, but that's now something he only allows family members to call him. I try to call him Zach on occasion, just so he knows I know his actual name.

Eli is my other great-nephew. He is Elizabeth's son. He doesn't like the orange light on my camera.

Debbie is my youngest great-niece. She loves the orange light on my camera. She is Melanie's daughter.

Other kids who are not blood-relations, oldest to youngest (as best as I can place them):

Cody is a kid I had in class back when he was in 7th grade. I have tutored him in every math class he's had since then, and a few non-math classes as well. He lives down the road a spell from me. Now I tutor him in getting scholarships.

Jake is the son of Patrick and Leigh. I used to refer to him and his sister as "the kids" for short, when I had "the boys", "the girls", and "the kids" I would talk about on occasion. The name still works, but it covers three people instead of two.

Max is the son of Lyndsey and Damien. Max is half of "the boys". Lyndsey is my sister from another mister. I met her my first year teaching at Eastgate. We were first year teachers together, although I was like nine years older than her (I took a bit longer getting a teaching job, you see).

Maddie is the daughter of Ben and Tricia. I've known Tricia since before kindergarten. I have dinner with her and her family weekly, pretty much. She and her sister make up "the girls".

Olivia is Maddie's sister. They are 10.5 months apart.

Tessa is Jake's younger sister. I'm not sure if she's older than Olivia or younger, but I'm pretty sure they're in the same grade.

Victor is the other half of "the boys". He's the son of Lyndsey and Damien. He's funny and brainy.

Wil is the baby brother of Jake and Tessa. I don't know a lot about him other than he's a baby and not talking much. Oh, and he has brown hair without much of a red hue (or any) which both of his older siblings lucked out and got some of.

Other kids I may mention are Max and Sofia (Jason's kids), but I'm totally at a loss as to where they fit in age-wise. Somewhere around Binx and Hannah... Sofia's the older sister to Max.

I hope this helps. I still need to do a "Cousin" edition so you have a clue about some other names I might toss about on here sometimes. Hope you enjoyed!

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