Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Bounced

How are your holidays going? My godchild ejected me from his house.

This evening, Jim The Small Child Nephew and I played Up (Aunt Beth carries Jim around the room on her back while he shrieks and kicks her in the kidney) and Aunt Beth Falls Down (Jim hurls himself at Aunt Beth as she collapses on the carpet, and then he shrieks and kicks her in the kidney). Aunt Beth is good for kidney-kicking, apparently, but not general company, as when I attempted to escort him to bed, there was a great deal of furor and shoving at the general direction of my knee.

"Do you want me to go away?" I said, completely just throwing it out there. You have to do this with two-year-olds at times, I have found, eliminating brewing tantrums by knocking out each potential, completely random want or need that two-year-olds tend to develop: "Do you want some maize for snack?" "Do you want an abassatorial appointment to Paraguay?" "Do you want a new career for Scott Baio?" "Oh, you want me to make Sesame Street magically appear on the air now, at nine o' clock at night? Well, that's easy!"

But no. Tonight, Aunt Beth was to go away. "Bye-bye," he said the instant I suggested it. The Paraguay thing would have honestly surprised me less, and caused far less umbrage.

This was honestly the best thing Country The Brother In Law had seen in his entire life. "You just got bounced by a two-year-old," he pointed out. Last time I saw the bouncer, I brought him french fries. Next time? Geese.

I think Jim was mad at me because earlier in the evening I had been a terribly mean aunt, denying him the bottle of children's Tylenol perched on the kitchen windowsill. I cannot imagine what I was thinking, preventing him from accidentally poisoning himself like that.

"I'll remember this," I said darkly, "in sixteen years when you're looking for college money."

"Bye-bye!"

"Yeah, bye-bye."

well I never at: mb@blondechampagne.com

7 comments:

Cbell said...

Take heart! This happens to all aunts! But start now to assemble an assortment of embarrassing photos that may one day work best to your advantage. Take one of a tantrum... use it wisely in years to come...

Anonymous said...

What's worse is when a child attempts to bounce his own mother from the home in which he pays for nothing. My oldest is 4, and has occassionally in the past told mommy to go away.

When daddy leaves, there is wailing and nashing of teeth. When mommy leaves, I'm pretty sure there is reveling as soon as I leave the driveway.

Anonymous said...

You're Aunt Beth, you're not suppose to do unfun things like enforce bed time. No wonder the King exhiled thee. : )

Anonymous said...

When I do something that doesn't meet the wholehearted approval of my goddaughter, she informs me that from this point forward, she's mad at me. Except she hasn't quite got the vocabulary down yet, so she says "I'm mean at you."

So, of course, I find this hilarious (just as I find hilarious her pronouncing of "frog," "fork," and any other one-syllable word that starts with "F" and ends with a hard consonant as . . . well, a certain other four-letter "F" word), which only enrages her more and makes her more mean at me.

Anonymous said...

jcat2323 is right! that's the whole POINT of being an uncle/aunt instead of a parent! Do things the kids love but mommy and daddy totally dissaprove, like giving your nephew his Xmas present 1 whole week ahead of schedule, despite the fact that his mother wants her son to WAIT to open all his presents until he returns from visiting his father on Dec 26. I mean C'MON! Then of coursemmy other nephew and niece from my other sister found out, and shouting and wailing demanded for their presents... but that's another story entirely and I need to have some work done!

Miasys said...

My 2 yr old daughter threw me out of her room too. "You get out NOW!" were the exact words used, with accompanying angry pointy hand gestures. Her father went to work the next day and told everyone, along with our entire family, so I got publicly bounced too. She still tries to order the cat out, but he's not having any of it.

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