BLOBBY'S BLOG

I Am A Good Uncle

Or at least I think I am.

For a long time I was the funnest (ok, I still am) and bought the bestest gifts. At least when there were only a few nieces or nephews. When there became eight of them, the gifts became less original, eventually with me just getting whatever their parents told me to. For awhile, through the gifts I'd get, it was fun to have someone to mold, at least in my own limited way. I have to say, I also liked buying things that I knew would annoy the fuck out of their parents: the popcorn popper that Fisher Price makes (you push it and the balls pop into the plastic dome). Or for Maddie, getting her the instrument set that had a triangle, blocks, tambourine and I think maracas, and giving it to her just before their eight-hour car ride. Even I stopped short of the annoying million piece Lite-Brite set.

But in the 15 years I've been an uncle, I've never had any of the kids stay over. I've babysat for many of them. I've even done overnights at their house during these babysitting jaunts. Two of the younger kids (five and seven years old) have been dying to stay over and been asking us for at least the last year. We kept putting them off - all for legitimate reasons. Either Denton was traveling or the house was under construction. Katie, the 15yo, wants to stay too, but only because she is convinced the house has to be haunted. Granted, it is almost 100 yrs old and big, but haunted it is not.....and I know from haunted (right Jon? right Dity? right Becca?).

So this last weekend we had the kids. Ok, that's a stretch. We had them for like 22 hours. But it was 22 hours in a row!!! It just felt like an entire weekend. It is times like these I know I am now and was never cut out to be a parent. Not that I haven't touched on that here over the years, but things like this just confirm it that much more. I love them, I do, and they were very well behaved.

What is the problem you ask? ME! Even though they are young, I swear I have a shorter attention span than they do. Ok, that's not quite fair, but it's not too far off. I can only feign interest in their likes/dislikes for so long....and the length of time is definitely too short for a babysitter. Denton is so much better about it than I am. Sadly, I subscribe to the "play with them and give them back" method.

I will give them this - they were not weepy about being away from home. I loathed staying with my relatives when I was their age. Well, when I was ANY age. It was also Dominic's first sleep-over. Tough for any kid. They did great though. Carmen didn't do a bang-up job eating dinner (just as Morty predicted she wouldn't) and it was only cheese pizza. But it wasn't the cheese pizza her parents got, so it was only one small piece which she consumed. Since our waffles weren't cinnamon waffles (who knew? ok...I mean, besides Morty!) she would not eat those either, even if (or especially if) we added the cinnamon ourselves. Dominic ate every piece of his individual pizza and a pudding!

When it came to entertainment, they both wanted the GameCube, but not the same game (natch!). Or when it came to TV, one wanted The Incredibles, one wanted Schoolhouse Rock. There wasn't time to watch both, let alone of them through completion before bedtime...which was to be 7:30p, but we let them stay up later. However, they opted to stay up much later, coming downstairs multiple times ('we forgot how to turn off your lights'. uh-huh!). I think their lights upstairs went out at 10p.

Since we've never had kids over, there were questions I should have asked their parents, like their sleep,eating and peeing patterns etc. But I didn't, nor did they offer it up. The one thing the kids did request was to go to Dunkin Dounuts. We thought that was a hit - mostly because they did. While there, Denton thought we should go to a new park that had just opened up, which we've seen being constructed over the past year.

Preston's Hope is in our Jewish Community Center, and built with the specific thoughts of children with disabilities. It really is a small town with great access for all kids. It is quite extensive and extremely impressive. Carmen & Dominic loved it (so did we). We literally had to pull them out of there, but they had to get home to get ready to attend a wedding.

Both kids were better than this uncle. The good uncle, who'd get secretly annoyed at the mess they made. The uncle who was also was peeved (at himself) for not having a better plan to entertain the kids. I don't think they cared and seemingly had a good time. Hey - they want to come back, so that is something.

Maybe I'm not such a bad uncle, but Denton is a great uncle.