Grandpère by Janet Romain

time I get their berries, Coby has emerged, rubbing his eyes and stretching. I give him my bowlful of berries and go off to make breakfast. Those boys will not be quiet for long.
    Today is Christmas Eve. Clint and Patty expect to arrive before noon. The boys are all in a state of high excitement by the time breakfast is over. Their cousins are coming, and they will get to see the “new baby Seth,” as they call him. The last time they were all together was at Easter, as they’ve never managed to coordinate their visits all year.
    Aaron eats bacon but can’t have pancakes because of the flour in them. He can have berries but can’t have yogurt, no milk products even. He can have goat milk, but one swallow is enough for him. He shakes his head, sticks out his tongue and shudders. “Yuck. I don’t like that. Goat milk is gross.”
    “It’s good for you. It will make you grow big and strong,” says Grandpère.
    “I’ll drink it,” says Coby, taking the glass and drinking it all.
    Jessica brings Aaron a glass of soy milk, which he drinks down with no problem. I tasted it one time when they were here and had much the same reaction as Aaron had to the goat milk. I guess it’s all in what you get used to.
    Clint and Patty arrive, and we set them up in the biggest room. They’ve brought a playpen for the baby, and the older boys have their own sleeping bags. They say they are going to camp out in the living room tonight and watch for Santa. The other boys say they want to do that, too, so I say they can all sleep there if they promise to go to sleep, otherwise Santa won’t come. For now they should put their bags in the room with their parents’. Off they race.
    Patty hands Kristen the new baby, only he isn’t such a baby now. He is like a little butterball. We put him on the floor sitting up with pillows all around in case he crashes. The boys lie around him for a while, trying to make him laugh, which he does. He seems to think his brothers and cousins are the funniest things he has ever seen. He sits there and laughs and smiles and slobbers, leans over too far and crashes into the pillows. The older boys think this is hilarious, and they’re all giggling, so the baby thinks it’s funny and he laughs more. We laugh at the boys laughing, and the world feels good.
    Soon they tire of playing with the baby and want to go outside. Jesse, Parker and Clint want to get their dad’s old snow machine running, so they bundle up all the older boys — even Aaron and Pierre — in their snowsuits, toques, mitts and winter boots. Cameron complains that his boots are cold, so Parker feels them. The felt pack is sopping wet; he must have filled them with snow yesterday. Grandpère tells Cameron to bring him the insoles, and he will get them dried over the stove. I go and get two pair of woollen socks and put them on over Cameron’s. “We’ll pretend it’s a double insole,” I tell him. He looks skeptical but shoves his foot in his boot, wiggles around a bit and nods.
    “Thanks, guys,” he says and races out after the others.
    “I’m a guy too,” Kristen says in answer to my raised eyebrows. “It’s an honour, so get used to it. At least he remembered to thank us.” We laugh.
    The day passes quickly. Grandpère and my sons have the heater going in the shop and the kids want to roast hot dogs in it. I don’t have wieners but I have lots of moose sausage given to us by Lorne’s hunting partner. He knows how we love moose meat and brings us some every year.
    I give the boys a big coil of sausage, some dinner buns, ketchup, mustard and a jug of juice. They take it out to the shop for a picnic. “Don’t forget to make some for your dads,” I yell after them. Jessica takes some soup out for Aaron, who can have the sausage but not the bun.
    A couple of hours later I hear the high-pitched whine of the snow machine, and Jesse pushes Aaron and Pierre, both crying, into the house. They are scared of the noise, he says. I