Full Participation

I LOVE participating! Except in group projects! And icebreaker games! And brainstorming sessions! Also riots. Anything, really, involving other people.

But I got to participate in Mother's Day! This is the very first Mother's Day in which I was actually on the receiving end of something: My baby nephew sent me a card. *tear* But all general adoration of babies and the Joy of Getting Things aside, I strongly prefer to maintain my Mother's Day participation at this level for the time being.

My sister traced Jim's tiny little hand on the inside flap (this was a three-person project, I am told-- it took my dad to hold his hand down flat, my sister to do the tracing, and my mom to distract him with a gigantic mylar balloon shaped like a bumblebee. I NEED one of these balloons to bring to business meetings.) I brought the card to the Evil Boring Day Job and propped it up on my desk so I can see it all day long and have concrete evidence that life is not all engineers and windowless offices. See, this is one talented child. He can already make hand turkeys, which are frankly beyond his godmother.

I got to talk to Jim on the phone last night. He was winding up a very productive hour of nonstop screaming ("There are other ways to say hello to your aunt instead of yelling!" my sister pointed out, to absolutely no effect.) So I got him on the horn and told him to suck it up. "NASA doesn't like whiny commanders, Jim, so you'd better get your shit together if you want to get to Mars," I said, and you know what? He stopped crying. See, it's all about the threats and the fear, properly applied. I am the BEST AUNT EVER.

In other news, Jim hurled all over himself and the interior of my sister's car yesterday. Come to think of it, I could totally use him to ride around with a couple ex's of mine.