From Non-Aunt to...Well, Aunt

 

By Siri McGuire

 

As many of you are aware, I became an aunt on March 14^th to a 9 lb, 6 ounce baby boy. The transition from non-auntiehood to auntiehood is perhaps understated, but one that includes many, many perks.

The most obvious perk is that there’s a whole other person in my family to love now. Now ‘love’ encompasses many things.  It not only includes all sorts of wonderful familial devotion and attention… butttt also a certain freedom to create endearing nicknames. For example: my darling nephew is a very active and restless baby, so he always has to do something with his hands. Sometimes this includes grabbing at the adorable little pudginess of his face, which we try to prevent him from doing because he could accidentally, you know, gouge out his eye. For some reason, this mannerism reminded me of something a pterodactyl might do (since it’s evident that I know all about the mannerisms and behavior of a species that died out what…. 7839204789478957289342 years ago?) Thus he became “pterodactyl baby.”

 

I’ll explain the advantage of auntiehood over non-auntiehood here through an example: Imagine the look you would get if you went up to a random baby in the park that grabbed at his or her own face and called him or her a “pterodactyl baby.” Do you think the mother would be concerned? That’s right she would!

Then again, my sister does still look at me oddly for it. Oh well. It’s okay because we’re related, right? I can hardly wait until he’s older, so I can compare him to some other extinct prehistoric creature. Forget all about the “terrible twos”- this little guy will be “The T-Rex Toddler.” Transitioning to an aunt allows me to nonsensically associate two completely unrelated things together. And what’s more fun than that?

Umm... I just realized something. I’m going to be the weird aunt. Oh well. Somebody has to do it, I guess.