The monkey made me do it

Close Encounters

My sister's kids are so cool!

I got the opportunity to babysit ALL THREE of them this past weekend (normally I just steal one away at a time but this was a special situation) and we had a grand old time playing Dance Dance Revolution, watching movies, eating horrible food, and hiding plastic bugs all over my house.

I stepped on a giant plastic cockroach this morning, it was fun.

The great thing about them all is that they are completely different personalities, with hardly any similar interests between them all. And by "great" I mean "hard to coordinate" and possibly "destined to bore/frustrate at least one of the three at any given time". I'm not sure how my sister does it - maybe a trained squadron of child-distractors? Themed sections of the house for each kid? The oldest boy is 12 now, and very bright. He loves to compete and his two little sisters have learned to just let him win at pretty much everything. He loved the DDR and wanted to go explore the other arcades in town, but the pained looks on his sisters' faces made me opt for other entertainment. He's definitely the boss of the group, and made sure to correct the girls while we were playing Apples to Apples and when the subject "odd" came up, they both screamed "Aunt Ja!" (my nickname). He cut in and said "no, she's not odd... remember? She's ECCENTRIC." The girls went "ohhh..." and I tried very hard not to laugh.

Side note: Apples to Apples, while a great game for adults, is a little challenging to play with children ages 6-12 who have been raised in a very sheltered environment. Whenever a historical figure came up or a pop culture person (Cher, for example. Try to explain Cher. I'll wait.), it took me a little while to tell them about the person and what they did. Andy Warhol was tough. Picasso was easier, I just pointed to the wall where one of his paintings is hung. Also, when the topic card came up with "Sensual" written on it I almost choked on my popcorn. They of course asked, and I told them that sensual means that it engages all of the senses. Also that it sometimes means romantic. They accepted this, which may cause problems a little later (sorry, sis) but made life a lot easier for be besides the blushing.

But anyways. The oldest girl is I think 9 now (hey, I can barely remember my OWN age) and artistic as all get out. She paints and draws, and when she came over handed me three sheets of paper, two with watercolor bands that melded into each other in a very Rothko-esque fashion (they're very pretty) and one with a floor plan for their ideal house, complete with furniture placement, doors, windows, and a flow plan! I used to do that when I was her age, though I spent most of my time laying out an octagonal house with an aquarium in the middle that was accessed from all sides (it took me a while to figure out the bathroom, since people could see into it unless the fish were continuously strategically placed) (my solution? I think I had fake fish in that part or something. Or really large, slow moving fish that were trained to hover there during nose-powdering times). She also loves dancing, and is learning hip-hop (she can do the worm) and cheerleading (she can kick her foot above her head). We had a yoga war last time I hung out down there, and it was very close! I've been doing yoga for about 5 years, and I finally trumped her with the good old-fashioned foot behind the head, but it was a nail-biter.

Her younger sister is 7ish (again, shush) and a total spitball. She hurts herself on everything and has ceased to really be bothered by it since she's had the tendency since toddlerhood. During their short visit, she slid through one of my chairs, dropped her snow cone (we cleaned it off), and I'm sure got a million unexplained bruises as we played dress-up and took thug pictures (her thug pose is priceless - "hang loose" hands, furrowed brow, pursed lips)(it helped that she was at the time wearing a turtleneck sweater with a belt on the outside, baseball cap turned backwards, and heels). She's also smart as a whip, as is her sister. She was offended by her sister and I mentioning that we hated something (I forget what exactly. Probably mean people or tangled hair or something in that vein.) and she piped up in her mini-Kathleen Turner voice, "You said a bad word. You said 'hate'. Wait, now I just said it. I'm a hypocrite. I'm a hypocrite!" And burst out laughing. Her voice is very low, so low that (this is my favorite story about her) once when she had a cold and it was even lower than normal, a telemarketer called and she answered the phone with a baritone "Hello?" Then she turned to my sister and said "Mama, am I head of househole?" The telemarketer had mistaken the 7-year-old LITTLE GIRL for her own father. hee.

But the visit was fun, things went very smoothly even though I was outnumbered. We watched Labyrinth on Friday night and I easily convinced them that the goblins were harmless but had a harder time explaining why David Bowie's pants were so tight. We went to the dog park on Saturday morning and took photos of their favorite dogs, and I taught them the wonders of the Chuck-It and the mystery of the Monkey "fetch" (luckily the youngest was more than happy to run after the ball too). We hung up my hammock in the backyard and played in the fort in the sunshine. It was great for a couple of days, but I still am amazed that my sister is able to do this day in and day out (the kids told me that I needed to have 3 babies, and I bartered them down to 1 baby and 2 dogs. I pushed for just 3 dogs ("really cute ones!") but they wouldn't let me drop the baby thing entirely. Negotiations are ongoing.)

posted by LadyJay @ 10:19 AM