I’m home again, after watching my littler nephew for a few days. Sherry, I tell you what. If you are not worried about holding to a schedule, and if you do not feel responsible for instilling table graces or even the rudiments of civilization, and if you basically cave each and every time, you can have an awful lot of fun with a nearly three year old. Once you accept that you are the sucker aunt and not a responsible parent-type person, it gets really fun.
We had a wonderful dinner, with Smalls up on the counter, eye level. I put out crackers and we made little sandwich after little sandwich, cream cheese or cheese slice and a topping. He liked his with black olives, or plain with peanut butter. We considered each sandwich carefully, his and mine, and clinked “cheers” for each. We shared yogurt and granola for desert, and played a new game “My bite or Meggie bite”, which is a little like Jump or Dive. In fact, he ate all his meals up on the counter. Sorry ‘bout that, sister. I know you set out place mats and transfer food to serving dishes, but, um, you weren’t there.
I don’t know if my sister knows that the littler little and I do that when I leave on Monday mornings. He will often come out while I’m packing and about to catch my train. I put him up on the counter and hand him a morsel every time I go by*. He sits while I make coffee, quiet and watchful, content with a fistful of raisins. He and I got along great this week, mostly because I caved every time he insisted on anything. I think the nephews have to be the primary beneficiaries of all my weight training. They always get a ride, ‘cause I can walk with a kid on my shoulders more or less indefinitely. I can easily press one overhead, pull fighting brothers apart, toss them, catch them. It helps immensely that physically moving a kid isn’t tiring. Anyway, he got an outrageous number of stories at bedtime and then he got to fall asleep on me as I read on the couch instead of going to bed. Good luck with his new expectations, sister!
I’m pretty content with the role of sucker aunt. It reminds me that my baby sister and baby brother used to come up to Camp Meggie for a week or two in the summer. Camp Meggie had a heavy emphasis on public pools, the ice cream parlor, pancakes for dinner, lots of park time and the trampoline at Chris’s house. Nowadays Camp Meggie is disparaged among the sibling set for lack of TV and because you have to walk everywhere, but it used to be considered fun. With the two nephews so young, I’m thinking Camp Meggie could get a revival. We should do it while simple things are still fun. For a couple dollars we could ride a light rail line back and forth. That’s the kind of fun we have at Camp Meggie.
*This, incidentally, is my standard approach to men. I don’t put them up on the counter, but my assumption for men is that they are hungry. If they are between 10 and 30, I assume they are very hungry at all times. There is no need to ask. When a man approaches, I hold out food to him. At my house, I hand him food every time I pass by. I don’t notice that the amount of dinner he eats goes down any.
I was watching my favorite movie, the one about the sports underdog. I think this one might have been ballroom dancing and I think it might even have Saved Urban Youth or something. If I remember right, one day the lead Urban Youth worked his after school job in a warehouse, left his apartment to avoid a family fight, decided against participating in a drive-by and showed up in despair at the ballroom dance teacher’s apartment.
The ballroom dance teacher let him in and shared some wisdom before letting him stay on his couch. I was nearly frantic in my seat. I wanted to shout at the dance teacher. THE KID IS HUNGRY! LOOK AT HIM! He’s some muscled giant who did manual labor and danced that day. HE IS STARVING. Don’t talk to him. Scramble half a dozen eggs and toast a loaf of bread. You can talk to him a thousand calories later, but when you’re done with your wisdom you should make him several grilled cheese sandwiches. He’ll be hungry again by the time you’re done talking. Three years later, I don’t remember much else about the movie, but I am still very distraught about that scene.