Stepford children

We lost an amazing man when George Carlin died. Watching his last HBO special yesterday was a bittersweet experience. My God, the man was astute. I don't have the talent or grasp of the language to memorialize him properly, but I loved seeing him, at age 70, rhapsodize on getting older and even on death. The best part was his riff on being forced to look at pictures of other people's children and suppressing the urge to tell the other people you don't care...

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Enough sadness. Let me tell you about my nephews!

(This picture was taken three years ago.)

Of all the jobs I've had in my life, being an aunt was the only one I could really nail without trying. Actually, it's the only one I nailed. The boys and I were auto-programmed to love each other, and entertaining and spoiling them (then giving them back to their mother) was and is my very favorite thing in the world to do. Even though I whine about going outside the Beltline here in Raleigh, I'd burn up I-40 for four hours each way every three months to hang out with them when they were little and living in Asheville.

Joshua is nine and Banyan is seven. They moved to Vermont from North Carolina a couple of years ago and I'd only seen them for about five hours since then. I got to spend a couple of days with them down home on the coast last week when my sister flew them down to hang out with my parents for a two-week summer vacation.

"Will they even remember me?," I lamented to Steve. "Will they remember all the hours we spent jumping in mud puddles, wrestling, rolling around the floor and playing upside-down boy?" Two years is a long time for a little kid. Last time I really spent time with them, they were seven and five and I was still able to swing them around. Joshua was just learning to read and Banyan was, well, "spirited" is the p.c. phrase. They fought constantly and somebody was always crying.

I was nervous and over the moon with excitement when I pulled into my parents' driveway last Wednesday. Even though I'd been drinking energy drinks all during the three-hour drive and my bladder was screaming to be emptied, all I wanted was to get my hands on those boys. My six-foot sister came flying out of the house to hug me. We shrieked with love and spun around and jumped at the sight of each other, then I saw two tall, skinny, handsome, blue-eyed, blond boys standing at attention like the von Trapps waiting to greet me. I dove at them, my heart bursting with love, and hugged them, proclaiming that I'd missed them so much! "We missed you, too," they replied in unison.

Like I wrote in my last post, Jill and I went out to play for the rest of the afternoon, then joined my parents, my aunt Jo and the boys for dinner. I just wanted to stare at them, drink them up and memorize everything about them. It was then that I really started noticing the changes: They both sat up straight, replied politely to questions with "please," "thank you," and "yes" or "sure" instead of "yeah." Banyan used utensils. When they'd finished eating, they carried their plates to the sink.

After dinner, Josh asked Aunt Jo to play checkers with him. When their game finished, Banyan set up the chess set and started explaining the game to us, "This is a rook, it moves..." I used ellipses there because people have been trying to teach me chess for 38 years and I just cannot memorize or fathom all the rules.

On Thursday, we all went 35 miles north to Wilmington to have lunch with Aunt Jo. We ate at a Mexican restaurant and the boys entertained themselves with puzzles on the kids' menu. After lunch, my sister hugged them goodbye and we sent them back to Shallotte with my parents. I drove Jill to the airport, then decided to walk around downtown Wilmington for a while on my own. Front Street had been turned into Brooklyn for a movie shoot and I was told I had to cross and not stop as I was walking. A gaggle of tween girls with digital cameras were screaming madly on the corner, but I didn't see anyone I recognized around the NYC cabs parked on the street.

When I got home, my mother was in full-on panic mode. "The boys miss their mother, go comfort them!" So I went and watched Animal Planet with them. They seemed fine to me.

The current Long John Silver's spot, where the two guys lamenting their small burgers get hit by a wave that turns their lunches into large slabs of fried fish, came on. "I don't think I'd like to be splashed like that," Joshua said. "Me neither," I replied, "It would make your lunch soggy." "Yes," he said, "then you'd have to go back to work." Did I mention he's nine?

Eight o'clock rolled around and the boys announced it was their bedtime. These are the two former littles we used to have to pin down with full-body wrestling moves just a few years ago to make them go to bed. They put their pajamas on, asked me to read them a story, and fell asleep five minutes into it.

Friday was our big day out, just the boys and me. We set off for Alligator Adventure Park in Myrtle Beach, mostly because I wanted to go, as alligators are my favorite creatures in the world. The boys got in the back seat of Judy Jetta, fastened their seatbelts and settled into their chapter books. A part of me had been dreading talking to them the whole way down, as they're big and think real thoughts and ask questions that require thought on my end, but a bigger part of me wished I had somebody to talk to once I realized they weren't going to.

We got to Myrtle Beach after driving half an hour and I complained aloud about the slow drivers in the traffic. Joshua said, "At least they're driving safely." Though I knew -- and told him -- he was right, my mind flashed back to four-year-old Josh in a car seat saying, after I complained about the traffic, "I don't wike twaffic."

When we got out of the car at the park, the boys put on their little backpacks and I sprayed us all with sunscreen. I bought the tickets and we went inside with our map, which the boys ended up reading. After we watched the alligator feeding ritual, in which the huge bulls literally jump out of the water for raw chicken, the boys informed me they needed a snack, as their blood sugar was getting low. So they sat down and ate granola bars from their backpacks as I stood by the railing, staring at the alligators.

We saw hundreds of alligators and crocodiles; ocelots, tigers and lemurs (one had a baby on her back and it was the cutest. thing. ever); millions of snakes in the serpentarium; and a live animal show where we got to touch a baby alligator. The only thing left was the amphibian house. "Okay, you guys go in, hold hands and come right out. I'll be waiting right here," I told them. When they came out, Banyan said, "Guess what we saw!" Then Joshua gently touched his arm and said, "Aunt Lee Lee doesn't like frogs." "Oh, sorry," Banyan said. Good boys!

By the time we left, it was lunchtime, so I had to let them experience the great Myrtle Beach tradition of the pancake house. We went to a Plantation Pancake House, like the one where I'd had my first job at 16 as the world's worst waitress. The boys are on strict diets: Joshua can't have wheat and Banyan can't have dairy. On top of that, Joshua decided on his own that he would never eat anything with a face a couple of years ago. "Somebody had to kill it."

Banyan ordered the waffle breakfast off the kids' menu. "I wish I could have waffles," Joshua said, "but it's okay. I'll get hash browns and a salad." They aren't allowed much sugar, but I let them get Sprites, and as I devoured my pigs in a blanket smothered in syrup, I wondered who these perfect angels were and what they'd done with my wild things.

"I really liked that lunch!," Banyan announced when he finished eating. "Me, too!" Joshua chimed in. Looking across the table at their beaming faces, I realized I hadn't had to coerce either of them into eating.

On the way out, Banyan saw the candy dish and asked if he could have a piece. "I dunno," I said, "I think that Sprite's kicking in." "We don't need anymore sugar, Banyan," Joshua said. "Okay," Banyan agreed, heading for the door, getting back in Judy Jetta, fastening his seatbelt and opening up his chapter book for the drive back to Shallotte.

When we got home, we had just over an hour to kill before the next showing of "Kung Fu Panda." "You guys hang out and let Lee Lee rest," I told them. And they did. Of course, I couldn't really relax, waiting for them to come jump on me and tell me they were bored and ready to go. But they didn't.

So we went to the cinema and got our seats and I braced myself for the impending meltdown. I'd tried taking them to the movies before and it was disastrous. I sat between them, knowing they were worn out from our big day and would start brawling, crying and screaming to go to the bathroom at any minute. They didn't. "I liked that movie," Joshua said as we walked out. "Me, too!" his brother replied.

We went back to my parents' house and dinner wasn't ready yet, so we rode bikes around the neighborhood for a while, being careful to watch for cars. After dinner, the boys watched "The Ant Bully" and went to bed at 8.

I went to bed, more exhausted than I've been in years, at 9. As I drifted off, I marveled at how good my littles have grown up to be. But I also missed jumping in mud puddles, wrestling, rolling around the floor and playing upside-down boy. I missed squeezing them and covering them with kisses when they reached those little Michelin Man arms out to me. I missed tickling away their grumpy tears. I missed them thinking of me as their big playmate.

They're growing up faster than I am.

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Don't you hate it when people send you unsolicited pictures of their kids? What's that all about? It bothers me. I hate to keep throwing away perfectly good pictures. --- The great George Carlin, 1937-2008