Landon, my oldest nephew.
Despite the ugly truth I received from my dentist today, my sister-in-law arrived this morning with her three kids: Landon, Madison and Siri who are 10, 6 and 2 respectively. I am always thrilled to see them because it’s only once every 12-18 months they’re around. Siri isn’t old enough to hang with me yet and I don’t want to learn how to change her diaper, I get incapacitated the dry heaves around such grossness. Landon usually digs talking to Uncle Maggi because I have a the motherlode of D&D books and miniatures. He’s only learning the basic game and I can’t predict if he’ll stick with such an expensive, time-consuming and still socially unacceptable hobby. Madison is a different case. I don’t mind doing all the little girlie things with her. When she visits here, Madison is outnumbered since her other cousins are all boys (Hunter and Wyatt, Canon is only a baby).
Madison, future heartbreaker
My sister-in-law Yvette chose to drive here from Daytona in the family RV. A wise economic choice but a trial for an adult’s patience. As you could guess, the kids were all wired after 36 hours of cabin fever so I had to ask Landon several times to please bring his energy level down to a 5. Madison was already in tears for some behaviorial incident on the way over. All I knew was the trip to Build-A-Bear got scratched. The only leverage I established over them is Dave & Buster’s which they discovered in 2004. Yvette and I have our differences, mainly political, but I always lend my D&B carrot to assist her with them.
Siri, the little performer
Maybe I’m a rotten uncle. I know kids aren’t as stupid as adults think they are so I always to talk directly to them and I won’t mince words. Whenever they’re being obnoxious or borderline unmanageable, I tell them that it better stop or else I’ll hand them back off to their parents. I even told Landon not to BS me about something or the D&B trip was off. Probably in the back of his mind, I’m now Uncle Hardass. Then again, he’s 10, my cat Molly has a longer attention span. I’m on a vacation day just for them (actually, it was supposed to the aftermath of the hockey game that fell through) and I want to go to D&B too. Tickets galore as soon as we’re done eating lunch!
Good lookin’ kids Uncle Hardass!