How about this face?

I know I've talked about my niece Roo an awful lot on this blog, but I can't help it. I love all of my nieces and nephews so much. And, since I'm her Nainy, I feel it is partly my job to make sure she's always smiling and always loved. That's what aunts are for. Truth be told, I'm that way with all of my niecse and nephews. T says I'm the "cool Aunt." I'm the one who talks to them like their miniature adults. I can't help it. One, I don't really have a censor so it's hard for me to say "now, step back here, Nain...should you say this to your 13 year old nephew?"

Case in point, back in March, T and I bought tickets with my brother and sister-in-law to see an Irish rock band, Flogging Molly. We love love love their music. Anyway, sis-in-law got sick with strep the day before the concert. She felt absolutely horrible, but to her oldest son's delight, she passed the ticket down to him. My oldest nephew has some excellent taste in music, let me tell you. His iPod puts mine to shame. So he was familiar with the band and was excited to go. So we had them meet us downtown before the concert at a restaurant called the Rathskeller, a German restaurant T and I frequent (and it's right across the street from the concert venue). I figured they'd have sandwiches and stuff to eat and it wouldn't be extraordinarily expensive. I was wrong. Dude, the dinner menu is ridiculous. More like gourmet German cuisine. No way would a 13 year old boy eat this. So I scour the menu frantically before the concert looking for an idea. And I found one, in the form of 2 appetizer platters...the brat and krat balls and the bratwurst sampler (a whole host of different german sausages). Now, I live with a guy who has the mind of a 13 year old when it comes to things like this, and he was already giggling over the word "balls" and "bratwurst" so I figured, hey, why not? When they got there, I could tell my nephew, C, was out of his element. Who wouldn't be at 13? So we order this meal, and for the rest of the dinner, I proceed to tell C that he needs to eat his balls and wieners because we're not going to the concert until every ball has been eaten. I got some laughs out of him, and he loosened up. Score! We ate and then headed to the concert venue. He had to have been one of the youngest ones there, so I tried to make him feel comfortable by, what else, embarassing him with my idiotic white girl dancing. Why not? More laughs from the nephew. Score again! And since this was his first concert, I felt it only necessary to buy him a t-shirt because that is a rite of passage for a young man. My only requirement was no profanity on the shirt. We stood in line, picked the shirt out, and it seemed ok...until he wore it at my mom's house the next weekend, and she noticed the beer mug in the corner. Doh. It's a rootbeer mug, mom, ok? (Am I bad influence?)

I've sucked T into my sick little world of warping the minds of my brother's and sister's kids. At the reunion a month ago, we could tell Roo was getting bored (well, we were too), and restless (again, ditto). So I decided to make her laugh by sticking my water bottle cap in my mouth holding it with my teeth until the thing popped out. T joined me, and pretty soon, we had Roo want to join the game. My sister looks over, shakes her head, takes a picture and says "look at what they are teaching my daughter." What else are aunts for?

So anyway, poor Roo has come down with the stomach flu, and nothing makes me sadder than to hear that my four year old niece is feeling under the weather. I must cheer her up. We have this thing we do with her where we make goofy faces and go "how about this face?" to make the other person laugh, and then it's the other person's turn to make a face. She's pretty good at it. The faces this kid comes up with crack me up. Such a clown. So I decided, as I pulled into court this morning, I was going to send my sister a picture message to cheer Roo up. So I made my silly face, and sent it to her saying "Nainy hopes this face cheers Roo up!" I have been told that it got a giggle out of a now recovering Roo. Mission accomplished.

So yeah, I might be a bad influence, but I'm a good aunt. Or at least I try to be! Just wait until T and I have young ones of our own...