The Aunt

I’m baaaack! Did you miss me? Did ya? Did ya? Don’t say no, or I’ll cry real tears.

Vacation was, in a word, fabulous. My sister and her kids came to New York for the Harry Potter festivities. (I haven't seen it myself, and probably shouldn't be sharing it in case I look like an idiot, but evidentally I'm part of someone's webcast. I know I swore I wasn't going to put on a costume, but yes, that's me in the Hogwarts baseball cap, Harry Potter glasses, and forehead scar tatoo.) Then I camped at the beach in Rhode Island with my family for a week. Coincidentally, without any planning on our part, Sarah was on vacation 15 minutes away with her family. Yeah, I was all broken up over that.

I am, as I like to say, darker than the average Caucasian. The first time I visited Polly when she was living in Georgia, her Alabama friend said she didn’t know they “had them that dark up North.” At the end of one of these trips, though, it’s ridiculous. Combine my Native Canadian skin tone with 7 straight days of going inside only to sleep and shower, and there is no sunscreen up to the challenge. I usually end up so tan that I’m the color of fried food, and am completely grossed out by own self. But this time I came prepared. I bought four different kinds of sunscreen with Helioplex, with SPF numbers like 70. Most days I would apply a 55 or 70, and then spray 30 over it every hour or so. I’m told that I’m more golden this time, and not so monochromatic (dark brown hair, eyes, and skin), so I guess I did okay. No woman wants to be human camouflage.

Now, as you all know, I love kids. Love, love, love them. And am so… freaking… happy I don’t have any of my own. What happens when you take one single-and-childless-by-choice woman, and put her with kids for nine straight days? It’s not pretty. On Friday (day 8) I looked at my mother and said, “I’m going to lunch. By myself. Somewhere they serve liquor.” Between my nephews, my niece’s goddaughter, Sarah’s kids, and her nieces and nephew, total kid count for the week was 14.

As overwhelming as it was, though, I loved doing it. I kept my 12-year-old nephew for the whole week (even though he never… stops… talking). I babysat Sarah’s little boys (ages 5 and almost 7), and brought my magic wand with me, insisting that it did real magic. I kept my goddaughter overnight, only to find out that she wasn’t feeling well, which meant that all things: eating, sleeping, sitting, had to be done on top of me. Literally. I got more cuddling in than you can imagine, and enough belly giggles to make my heart soar. At one point I was tooling around in Sarah’s van with 5 boys, having a blast. I love being the aunt. And you know what? I’m good at it. We were sitting around on the beach one day, and Sarah’s sister looked at me, as if it had just occurred to her, and said, “You’ve really got it made, don’t you? You can take the kids for as long as you want, and then you can just give them back and go home alone “ Yes, my friend. Yes, I do have it made. That’s the beauty of being the aunt.