chaotic_nipple

Me asking a small toddler's Grandma: "Can Jay have a whole Reese's peanut butter cup, or is he too little"?

Small toddler piping up, without even knowing what we were talking about: "I too little".

When my adorable niece Destiny was about a year and a half, she had a habit of poking people and then announcing the name of whatever she was pointing at, especially when you had just picked her up. "Nose!" "Ears!" "Tattoo!". What always cracked me up was when a grown-up of the female persuasion would pick her up, and she would jab them in the "Boobs!" If she grows up to be a lesbian, I am totally telling that story to every girlfriend, or even potential girlfriend, that she ever has. Hell, I'll tell that story at her _wedding_. That's the kind of uncle I am. :-)

Ice cream, of course. Took the two big monkeys to Friendly's, while the newborn monkey stayed home. The big ones behaved themselves, and one of them even managed to avoid making a mess:









Afterward, we went back to grandma's, and the big monkeys _insisted_ I get pictures of them with the baby monkey. What could I do?

About a month before I went for my second Iraqi Vacation, I was visiting parents, and my niece Destiny drew me a picture of her brand new baby brother. Of course, being a two-year-old, her drawing wasn't very representational, but I pretended to be impressed as she told me "Did is his nose, and dese are his fingers, and dis is his bewwy button." I had to laugh when she got to "And dis is his peepee!", though. Ah, the innocence of youth. :-D

Took 6 of the rugrats to the zoo today. 4 of them were well behaved...

Have a Merry Christmas, Hannukah, Solstice, Yule, or Saturnalia. Heck, we'll even count Kwanzaa as a real holiday, just to be nice! Orthodox Christmas, though... I guess it's as real a holiday as "regular" Christmas, but it seriously irks me that they get to do all their shopping at day-after-Christmas clearance sales. Hardly seems fair. ;-P

My nephew Sam is completely adorable. A few minutes ago, he was "sleep crawling". being only 3 months old, he can't actually get into a crawling position yet even when he's awake, but he knows that he _wants_ to be mobile. The kid's obviously a genius.

Pharyngula revels in squiddiness.

In other news, I took my niece Destiny and Nephew Brandon to Friendlies for ice cream today. They behaved _so_ well in the car. And for the first ten minutes of waiting for the ice cream to get to the table. The rest of the time... Well, I hope the 30% tip makes it up for the waitress. I guess Brandon, at not-quite-two, isn't quite big enough to eat at a restaurant. Alas.

Update Lookee, new icon! It's Power Puff Me!

I just got to talk to my adorable niece Destiny on the phone. This time, she just said "Hi!" real quick, and handed it back to her Grandma. Last time, though, she went on and on about how She Saw Me Fly Away In A Plane, And It Was Awesome!!!!! Eventually, her Grandpa picked up the other handset, and you know what she said? "Papa, I'm on the PHONE!". :-). According to her Grandma, she's actually learning to read, at the tender age of 3 1/2. She can recognize most of her letters, and knows that "C-a-t spells cat!" Whether she really understands what that _means_ or not is another question; Last summer, she was adamant that she really COULD read, because she could recite her favorite storybooks verbatim. Even when Grandma covered up the words. Or closed the books entirely. :-)

As for Brandon, he can walk perfectly now. He was able to take a couple of steps before, but he always got bored with the slowness of upright locomotion, and flopped back onto all fours, where he was the proverbial greased lightning. He's also almost as much of a chatterbox as his sister was at that age. They are both completely adorable, and are obviously destined for greatness.

If all goes according to plan, I'll get to spoil them both within a few weeks after Christmas. Incidentally, our unit recommends people back stateside stop sending us mail around the first of December. Anyone who's been meaning to send junk food, now's the time...

Just got a call saying that my niece Shayla was in a car accident. She suffered a broken skull, but she's not in life-threatening danger. She's already out of the hospital, and convalescing with her grandparents. Good thing she inherited her dad's hard head, I guess. He mom will be in surgery soon, but is also expected to be OK. There's only one thing to do, and thats to buy the wee one toys to take her mind off the owies. Good thing Lego makes Castle Duplo's these days.

Whenever I go through customs, or just airport security in general, I have to physically restrain the urge to say things that will get me in trouble. My internal giggliness at the prospect of again spoiling my nieces and nephews only made it worse.

When I was going through Kuwait, they had a special ceremony celebrating the 250,000th person going on R&R from Iraq and Afghanastan. Inspiring, or something. We missed lunch for it, but got some almost edible cake out of the deal. Going through Hamburg, we got a morale-boosting song-and-speech routine from a chaplain, that was actually funny. I had a moment of stark despair when I saw a soldier, in uniform, playing a shoot-em-up arcade game, and firing the gun retard... I mean, "Gangsta" style. There's just no excuse for that.

Going through the Atlanta airport was somewhat annoying. If there's one group of people who can be guaranteed not to have bombs in their boots, it's soldiers on leave. So why did we all have to take our boots off, huh? And you know what else? People who just stand there on escalators? They deserve to be bludgeoned about the head and shoulders. Some of us have places to go, and you people are just in the way. Unless you require a cane to walk, there is no excuse to rest your lazy rear while I'm trying to walk up the escalator.

Ah, but it was all worth it, 'cuz now I'm here to spoil my nieces and nephews. Tomorrow I'l take them out to the movies, and then Books-a-million, and then to the toy store. My niece Laura is as completely adorable in person as her pictures led me to believe. Ah, munchkins...

"Don't worry about rough handling the luggage, Pedro's a tough little guy."