Happy Birthdays Nephews...

When it rains….

I am the middle daughter sandwiched between two sisters and the three of us have managed to produce five children. Four of the five cousins’ birthdays are between June 20th and July 1st. The straggler’s birthday is at the beginning of August. My mom’s birthday is June 11th, throw in Father’s Day and it’s pretty much like a mini Christmas spread out over the beginning of summer. I start saving months ahead of time for the birthday fests.

Weird trivia. My two sisters and my first born birthdays… My daughter’s birthday is June 29th. My nephew from my younger sister has a birthday on June 30th. My older sister’s first born’s birthday is today, July 1st. How likely is that? Apparently my mom gave birth to three daughters who turn into mini goddesses of fertility in the Fall.

In honor of the nephews’ birthdays, I am reposting a guest post I wrote for Mama Dawg last month while she took vacation at Disneyworld. BTW She has been posting stories, photos, and videos of that trip and she knows her House of Mouse. I’ve been vacationing vicariously over there.

For the nephews. Who’s cool now?

My first experience of being an auntie I was only 16 years old. My sister is four years older than me and she had my nephew when she was 20. I loved that kid (still do) like nobody’s business and wanted so much to be the “cool aunt.”

When he was six I took him to Disneyland. Just the two of us. He wanted to ride nothing but the Autopia. Being cool, I did what I thought no parent would do. I rode the Autopia 45 times in a row. The last 35 times were his “just one more time PLEASE times.”

Finally I said, “Enough. I need to show you what fun really is.”

But he screamed his bloody head off in all the storybook rides. During Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride I thought he would claw his way under my skin.

He refused to ride anything resembling a roller coaster. Absofuckinglutely refused. What kind of kid was this?

I distracted him in Frontier Land with the shooting galleries. He was all boy there. He wanted me to buy him one of those wooden rifles.

I bribed him. Told him I would buy him one if he would go on a ride of my choosing, meaning something fast and fun.

He agreed thinking I would not hold him to it.

In my defense I did not pick the Matterhorn or Space Mountain (my two favorite rides). I selected Rolling Thunder Mountain.

While we moved up in line he asked me 167 times, “You’re not REALLY going to make me get on this if I tell you I’m too scared? Right?”

Who did he think he was dealing with? Of course I did. In my roller coaster loving mind I just knew once he had a taste he would be crying MORE! MORE! MORE ROLLER COASTERS PLEASE AUNTIE!

I was so wrong.

But at least he did not throw up on me.

I also took the kid skiing one winter and paid for his lesson. I laughed so hard I peed my snow suit when he could not snow plow and slammed into the back of the knees of a huge, overweight man and sent that man smack into the First Aid Shack.

Another time I took him to the Miniature Golf Castle and let him play video games after golf and eat so much junk food that the next day my sister took him to urgent care with a stomach ache that turned out to be him being constipated.

There was the time I took him out for dinner and we ate in the bar because I had a crush on the drummer of the band that was playing there. For years the kid thought he went to a rock concert.

One of the coolest things I did was take him to a Friday night shooting of Happy Days. I had a slutty friend who was dating Ralph Mouth and we could get in any Friday we wanted. My nephew got to hang out on the stage afterwards and meet all the cast.

And the topper. When he was 12 I talked everyone in the family into pitching in for a plane ticket for him to come to Hawaii and visit me. I was 28 and cocktailing my way through college. Mr. Pseudo and I had recently moved in together and were living in sin. What a wonderful collision of worlds that was. We took him to Chinatown and let him buy all kinds of illegal martial arts crap. In my defense we called his parents and his dad said it was OK, only that the kid could not mess with (touch) the stuff until he got home and was with his dad. I thought I had packed the weapons away but when we took him sightseeing he magically had an illegal weapon of some kind… Let’s just say I momentarily lost my cool. And we all almost got arrested.

Fast forward 20 years and it is me and my family visiting him in LA. He’s a thirty something year old hipster and has a job where he works with a lot of rich and famous people and my kids think he is the coolest relative on the family food chain.

He takes us to a store where all the hipsters shop. The kind of store the paparazzi hang out in front of when celebrities are inside. The first thing I do is embarrass him by busting out my camera and taking a picture of my kids trying on shoes in the store. The security guard came up and told me no cameras or pictures or they would ask me to leave. My nephew pretended not to know me and ditched me for the opposite side of the store. But I followed him, because that is what irritating, visiting, embarrassing relatives do.

He headed into the half of the store that features jeans. Not the Old Navy curvy hips and thighs jeans his middle age auntie that used to be hot wears. Designer jeans. Hipster jeans. Jeans STARTING at $200.

So I browse. My first order of business was to see just how expensive these jeans could be. The answer, according to my perusing, is $598. Imagine that.

Next, I decide that for $200-$600 they must all be magic jeans. Therefore I must try some on.

But how to choose?

I’m trying to select a few pair when an adorable young sales girl that has the body of a 12 year old who has not started puberty comes up and asks if I need help. Indeed I do.

"I’d like to try on some of your jeans. Cost is no option."

(I do not mention that this is because I will not actually buy anything I try on).

"What brands and styles would best suit my body type?"

The sweet young thing furrows her brow and carefully picks out three pair.

"These would all be good choices. The waistband is a little higher than the really low ones, and the way the material doubles up it will hold you in and help camouflage your muffin top."

YES. She. Did.

My nephew was a couple aisles away. I don’t think he heard her. I wouldn’t want him to know his cool auntie is not so cool anymore. She is a muffin top laden middle age hunk of lump.

Happy Birthday nephew from younger sister.

Shown here with my daughter in 1995.
The scene of the crime.
Respecting older nephew's privacy and not posting a photo of him.