The Favorite Aunt

I'm lucky enough to get to watch my niece, Evie, and my nephew, Isaac, while their mom works in the afternoons. That gives me lots of time to indoctrinate them, and my recent project has been teaching Ike, who is nearly 2, to say that I'm his favorite aunt. It's clearly true, because he is very cooperative when it comes to going down for his nap. Whereas it takes Julie hours to get him to bed at night, in the afternoon I just tuck him in, give him a kiss, and he turns over and goes to sleep. This afternoon before I even got him tucked in he said, "Gimme a kiss!" It melted my heart.

I Do Believe!

Henry recently lost his first tooth...and I mean he really lost it. We have no idea where it went, except for our speculation that he swallowed it. He must have been a little freaked out because he didn't even tell us that he had lost the tooth. I came home from work and thought I noticed extra space in his mouth, but when I asked him to smile he blocked his bottom teeth with his top ones, so I didn't see the hole in the bottom row. A little later Aunt Julie confirmed that he had, indeed, lost his tooth. He fessed up to losing it when he bumped into the bookshelf down in the Schuetz's basement - he was probably doing something he shouldn't have!

Fortunately the Toothfairy accepted a note in lieu of the actual tooth, and she left Henry a dollar under his pillow. The next morning, I overheard Henry telling Josh that he didn't believe in the Toothfairy. Josh asked, "Then how did that money get under your pillow?" Henry replied, "Dad, there are a couple of reasonable explanations." Before Henry could think too hard about what those might be I jumped in, "Well, if you don't believe in the Toothfairy, she might not bring you any money anymore." Very quickly Henry backtracked, "I mean, I do believe in the Toothfairy!"

Got Milk?

Yesterday Elena was sitting between Oma and me in church when Oma wanted to hold Ingrid. Ingrid is 8 months old and very much a mamma's girl. Oma didn't get to hold her for long before she reached for me again. Elena was apparently concerned that Oma's feelings were hurt. She whispered in Oma's ear, "It's okay, Oma. You just can't feed Ingrid because you don't have any bumps." Then she gave Oma the once over and revised her statement, "Well, your bumps aren't big enough to feed Ingrid, anyway."