Sundays with Stretchy Pants

And we’re going to Chesaning this weekend to celebrate him and his high school graduation. He was born a day before my 15th birthday and he was every bit the adorable pudgy little doll baby. I loved driving him around in my sweet muffler-less Chevette and feeding him Happy Meals while he yelled out, “Putt-putt!” every time he saw a tractor in a field or “Who dat?” every time I waved at a passing car. He called me Aunt Babby and liked to play with my big, permed hair. And I don’t mean he liked to twirl a piece around his fingers while drifting off to sleep. He would say, “Can I hode your hair Aunt Babby?” and I would sit on the floor while he stood behind me and played with my hair. With his face. And his drool. He was endearingly odd in that way, but I let him do it because he was my sweet little first-born nephew.  He also used to use his eight thousand toy tractors (which he still has) to make elaborate farms and if you happened to need to walk through his play space, he would screech, “DON’T STEP ON MY FIEEEELD!” Very serious business, carpet farming. Sometimes we would have to pole vault over his precious farmland in order to get through to the bathroom.

And now he’s all grown up and only calls me Babby if he’s trying to get me to do something for him, which works every time. He doesn’t drool in my hair anymore while piling it on top of his face. And maybe he doesn’t play with his toy tractors anymore (that’s a big maybe), but that would only be because he gets to drive the real ones with real crops, which is no different than playing. But he’s still my nephew and I still adore him and I’m so looking forward to seeing who he becomes in this next phase of life. And I reserve the right to make him call me Aunt Babby for the rest of my life.

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