Cousins are comforting.

Today, I just kind of want to talk about my cousin Tyler. Tyler is a girl, by the way! A lot of people think that when I talk about her, I mean a boy, but no, she's a girl. She's the only cousin of mine that I really was ever close to. We aren't so close anymore because she lives in Missouri and I live here. We haven't seen each other since 2007? Maybe Maybe even 2006? Anyways, it's been a long time. But I just started thinking about her because she FINALLY made a facebook and sent me a request. I haven't talked to her in SO long. We can't text because she doesn't have a phone, but every time I think of Tyler, my childhood comes whirring through my memory like a tornado. We've been close ever since I was a baby. She's only 1 year older than me, and since we're so close in age, we're probably the closest cousins in our family. She has an older sister, Halie, but she's 23 and she always hung around my sisters. When I was little, I would visit my grandma's house in Warrens burg, Missouri (it's 4 hours away from here) ever other weekend. We'd leave Thursday night and stay till Saturday night and then be home on Sunday. And every time I went over there, Tyler would be there and that would make me so happy! I remember being little and our moms used to dress up like we were on the show Full House in those embarrassing dresses and whatnot. Back then, we just preferred our good, ol' overalls. No joke. We'd walk around barefoot all the time and when we were maybe 2 and getting close to 3, I remember we would spend hours sitting across the kitchen floor with race cars (my mom would buy me a new plastic, indestructible race car every weekend for 99 cents. HOLY COW. Toys for kids nowadays are what? 20 dollars?! Sheesh) and Tyler would sit at one end of the kitchen and I would sit at the other and we would drive our race cars to each other, back and forth, and back and forth. And we'd just talk about 3-year-oldisms. I remember when we would watch Thumbelina and the Little Mermaid for hours on end! Her favorite princess was always Sleeping Beauty, and I could never stand Sleeping Beauty, so whenever she watched it she would make me dance to all the music with her. Our moms used to make us do the dishes (yes, we had to the dishes at 2 and 3 years old), and we would always make them angry because we would splash water on our ugly dresses. Sooner or later, they just made us wear nothing but our diapers when we did the dishes, so there is a lovely baby picture of us standing on chairs in front of my grandma's sink in nothing but our diapers. Thanks ma. We would always try to play pranks on our Grandpa, mainly because he always played pranks on us. We thought the funniest thing ever was putting his hair into ponytail holders and his hair was spiky and it would just stand up straight. We did that while he was sleeping. Tyler and I would play outside all the time, which is mainly why we liked wearing overalls with just a shirt underneath it, because we could get it dirty all we wanted without getting yelled at by our mothers. We ran around barefoot (and I mean, we ran around barefoot ALL the time. I can't remember us wearing shoes until we were a little bit older and we HAD to) and climbed trees and drank strawberry milk (back when I liked milk by itself) and had burping contests and got into our grandma's makeup. Everyone in my family called Tyler "Shirley Temple." Even on her Christmas gifts, the tag would read From: Santa To: Shirley Temple. She had the brightest red hair that curled into a million little curls. Her sister was blonde, her mother was blonde, and her father was brunette, so we know she probably got the red hair from MY mother. Tyler looks like my mom more than anyone out of our family, and she acts like her too.
Here's a picture: You can't really see her face, but you can see her hair.

On the left is my other cousin, Halie, and then in the middle is my Uncle, who sadly, never got the boy he wished for. I think Tyler is the closest thing he will ever get to a boy. Her hair was always such a bright red, and it looks just like my moms. I think this was taken in 1999, so she was 4 and I was 3. Check out the nice overalls, eh? :)

I remember when our sisters would blow up balloons on the couch and then stuff them down their shirts so it looked like they had really big bosoms! Tyler and I thought that was the funniest thing in the world, so of course, we wanted to give it a try. Our sisters would watch old TV shows, like Saved by the Bell. They always thought Zack was the cutest and they would sit there for forever and talk about how cute he was. We thought they were disgusting, and we'd rather stick with our Little Mermaid.
Seeing her just always brings up memories. I can't look at her without remembering part of my childhood. It's like she carries part of it with her, and I'm sure I do the same with her.
I'm pretty sure she doesn't remember as much as she used to. It's been so long since we've seen each other. But seeing her reminds me of the joyful, carefree times we used to have, running around, being scrawny little girls in overalls with curly hair climbing trees and playing pranks on our grandpa. I miss that..