No - not been at the Christmas bottle of sherry - yet. (but i may well hit it soon!!)
It was Matthew's Dad's 80th Birthday last week and we had a party at one of the sister's houses.
Matthew's dad has 6 children, 17 grandchildren and 3 great grandchildren (hence the adding of said bird and said tree - i doubt anyone would have noticed)
So the age range was from 80 down to 8 weeks and 4 days old!!!!
The 8 week and 4 day old is the reason that i haven't blogged for ages - He is the newest addition to the family and my grandson!!!
In short, if he was chocolate you'd eat him
A pic of Christopher with Grandad at about 7 hours old.
Told you he was cute.
But anyway - Friday night was his big debut meeting family members on his paternal side. (the maternal or distaff sides party is in a few weeks when the Australians arrive!!!)
So off we went - convoy of 2 cars, 6 grown ups and a baby.
This child had a ball - we hardly saw him - apart from when he needed feeding and it was nice (mostly!!) to meet up with every one.
Come on - we've all got that one relative we don't want to see. But we behaved!!
For me, it's always rather bittersweet when we get together with Matthew's family. One of the cousins is 3 months older that Peter and has a degree in English Lit and Slavonic Studies. (yeah, right, cos that's the kinda degree that you're REALLY gonna get a job working as in Glasgow. Just crying out for teachers of slavonic wotsits!!!)
He's also now doing a PhD - something eastern European. I don't ask questions that i'm not really bothered about the reply to!!!
(i'm such and interested in how you're all doing Auntie - NOT!!! I will ask a couple of them, but mostly - nah!!! )
But it often brings home to me that Peter's development is well and truly delayed, he's not going to catch up and well, this is almost as good as it gets.
All this was on top of an incident that happened at the lunch club Peter does some work at. The incident (not going into details just now) just showed how vulnerable Peter is and how he can't always tell you what has happened.
I kind of did know, but things have been ticking over well, but it was a kick up the bahookie even for the workers at the lunch club as well and has made us all think about how we approach things.
In times gone by, i would have cried and not really wanted to be there.
But Peter chatted to most of Matthew's sisters, almost got me to slap the one who is most patronizing and two of his cousins want to come to Disney with us in January!!!
Poor Claire - when we were talking about holidays, she was like " oh, i've never been on a holiday like your ones!"
(just shows that i maybe did something right. BUT - if i ever win big on the lottery, i may ask her mum if she and Anna want to come to Disney in Paris with us. These 2 cousins i love and they chat away to Peter!!)
Over the years, i have managed to be better about dealing with these family get togethers .
I try not to get upset and my thickened skin and black sense of humour usually get me through.
(oh, and the fact that we don't often meet up and i can escape back to our little world. That helps!!!)
But it was nice to see how good Christopher and Peter were in their own ways.
Mind you, mother has one glass of prosecco and was knackered after.
Just not used to friday nights out anymore.!!!!!
