"She's Cool!"

Sukie and Leslie got so excited when they found out that their 17-year-old cousin, Juanita, was coming over to babysit.
“Mommie this is so exciting---I love it when Juanita baby-sits us.  She’s cool!”
Leslie gushed, leaning against her mother’s knee.
“Yeah, she’s ‘citing....and...and...cool.”  Sukie co-signed.  Not quite five years old,  she was on her way to mastering many things that Leslie knew how to do, hoping that would make her eligible to ride the school bus and enter the second grade with her sister.  It had been a shock to them both when Leslie entered the first grade and had to leave Sukie at home.
Melvina snorted.  “Oh, she’s cool, huh?”
“Yeah.  She wears a good hairstyle and everything!”
“Yeah.  Her hairstyle is good---like mine.”  Sukie patted her hairstyle, which consisted of one pitgtail on top and two more just behind her ears.  She and Leslie had tied several bows of red string on all of these, and were proud of themselves for doing so.
“....And she chews her gum like this:” Leslie popped her fingers with a loose wrist to approximate the sound and attitude of Juanita’s rhythmic chewing-gum smacks.

“You two silly-pills need to get dressed for bed.  Go on, get upstairs.”  Melvina scooted them along.  They were already on a tangent of making popping and smacking sounds with their fingers and mouths, wobbling their necks and chirping like baby chicks.

Leo, the husband, the dad, sat quietly on the edge of the sofa while all of this was going on.  His eyes were closed and he was having a raggedy time of getting-in a moment’s peace.   Nine hours of work had already been put in at the auto plant where he was a foreman.  Then he had come home to eat green peas and meat loaf with rice and gravy around a table decorated with the chatter of his wife and daughters.  In a little while he was going to have to drive over to Edna’s and get Juanita.  Tonight there was some sort of meeting at the school and Melvina insisted that they attend together.  Leo didn’t see why he needed to go:  Melvina was the one who knew how to mingle and talk around white people, not him.
“Leo?  Aren’t you going to get Juanita?”  Melvina called from upstairs.  She was helping Sukie off with her clothes.  
“I’m taking the girls with me.” he replied, and then listened to hear their squeals of delight.
“We get to wear our pajamas in the car?!” Leslie gave her mother a wild look.  Sukie was sitting on the floor pulling on her pajama bottoms when she was struck with her epiphany:  “My ‘jammies has feet in them!”  The idea of wearing pajamas outside, in the evening, without socks and shoes had a great feeling to it, already.  This was right up there with eating pancakes and syrup with bacon for dinner!