Moments for the scrap book… pt 4

Not just great, but AWESOME
Just another note, that it really doesn’t take much to become the coolest person on the planet to a little kid.

My taking my own Nintendo DS as an extra one for any kid without at the party was apparently the coolest idea EVER, and instantly made Dennis’ little niece Abby my very best friend. Ivy had her calling me Awesome Aunt Kim, too. Anything that little 8-year-old sweetie needed, I was apparently able to provide, and I guess I didn’t realize how blown away she was by it all. I mean… I may not have picked up the sparklers and snaps, but I did get them out for the kids and light them. Come Saturday night when Tessa and the kids were heading back to the hotel, where they intended to get up early and start the long ride home to Maryland, Abby was SO sad to be leaving. Her brother, Christopher — who announced to me the day before that he was my favorite kid — was frantically trying to think of something he could leave behind that they’d have to come back for. Abby just grabbed me and said “come on”, telling her mom that I had to go with them. I got a big hug out of her, and she left me with a huge pouting lip and eyes full of tears. I, of course, nabbed her lower lip and tugged and told her I’d hang onto it so they’d have to come back for it some time. It was such a sweet and unexpected event for me. [Of course, it wasn’t until later that I found out that as Sis walked them to their car with the flashlight, they’d all discovered one of Jess’s friends having sex on their way out.]

Apparently put into one of my more generous moods by this sweet behavior, I went upstairs to check on our two remaining kids, the frewtnut-great-niece and drunk-ass-Eric’s sweetie daughter, who had been resigned to the upstairs living room to hang out and sleep, since the tent-city plans to avoid the drunk people had fallen through. As I walked in, they asked me if everyone was too drunk to build the bonfire they’d been promised, since we had bought stuff to make s’mores. I told them that I was pretty sure the people who had promised the bonfire were already passed out, and apologized that I didn’t really feel confident to build one myself. In a very mature statement, they assured me that they had been afraid to ask anyone because they thought people were just drunk enough to think a bonfire was a good idea and too drunk to be safe managing one, and they didn’t think some s’mores were worth anybody getting hurt. As a reward for this very mature attitude, I offered to make up the white-chocolate covered strawberries, which we’d also forgotten to make earlier, and they were very happy.

For someone who doesn’t really want kids of her own, I am apparently a rockstar with other people’s kids. Maybe it’s just because I don’t get to see kids often, so when I do, my tolerance is up. Of course, when I decided to entertain the kiddies Saturday afternoon by setting up the Harry Potter rifftrack, I only sat around in there long enough to hear a couple genital-scan jokes before I decided to make myself scarce and just let them enjoy it. What do I know from appropriate kiddie-material? They weren’t my kids! =)