Aunting

The best thing about being an aunt is passing on lore and tradition and participating in all the childhood rituals. Also creating new ones! And getting to grant the occasional wish or two. It all makes life bigger.

Nobody celebrates birthdays like kids do! They relish the occasion to the fullest.
The part I didn't notice before was how your birth is an enormous milestone in the lives of those who remember it. I remember a clear sequence of events in tandem with the lives and ages of each kid. I took stock in remembering my first niece's birth, 14 years ago. Too much to squeeze in here, but oh my how I love that girl.

I've just had two kid birthdays in a couple weeks, and of course the time of year for all manner of celebration, we've had a ton of fun. I am still riding the wave of the surgery and had to completely stop everything in my life for that but I have been lucky enough to engage in lots of kid time. And really, is there anything better? Why, just this week I taught the girls to take the top off a glass Coke bottle with a BIC lighter and drilled a hole in a coin for Danny so he could put it on a string and try to use it in vending machines (which of course, it won't). As backup, I taught him how to hypnotize someone by swinging it "back and forth, back and forth" in front of their eyes like they do in movies.

I made Danny's present at my workbench with him in the studio one day this week. I love making stuff with them, just like I loved watching and "helping" Mom & Dad make stuff. If I had been around my aunts I would have loved to have been on the inside of their world too.

I got his cake made and took the frosting to decorate there and when I was too tired, the kids had a ball doing it themselves. Everybody wins!

Oddly, I  can believe it was 7 years ago when Danny came along, and what a long strange trip it's been indeed. Time goes by so much faster now. Next thing you know, it'll have slipped away.
You've got to do everything you can to have fun right now.