We were blessed to have a visitor stay with us this past Friday night; none other than the esteemed Augustine Pirate Captain Robot with Wigglers Sigler, nephew extraordinaire. Augy brings a certain level of expectation (re: energy level needed) in that he believes his Uncle Josh is a never-ending supply of adventure and laughs. While I do get pretty amped about seeing him, I must say we needed about 3 hours of sleep after he left Saturday- not that we didn't dominate or anything, we just don't have the experience others have in the constant supervision of kiddos department. So Friday night was set up by Jenny telling me that Augustine loves to run errands with people, even if they're mundane and boring. He's a task oriented kid, what can you say? With Brienne needing at least an hour to work on her masters project, Augustine and I ran 3 extremely important errands.
(1) We needed to make double sure that the home we just bought was ok- so we packed up the car and headed out to Powell to "super Robot spy" on the house. Everything seemed in order. For the record, he refuses to sit behind the passenger side in back ever again. We had to shake on that one. Apparently it's not where Pa-Pa sits him (directly behind the captains chair?) so why would I? Sound logic...
(2) We also really needed to go to the pet store and secure some kitty treats. If there's one thing all our animals are learning, it's that Aug loves to hand out treats in bulk! (Izzie went numero duo about 5 times yesterday) We spent a good hour at Petsmart eyeing up the aquarium accessories and parakeets ("parrots") and gold fish, along with also getting a "laser pointer" for the kitties. This was paramount for their happiness he seemed to think. If you don't know, I'm a pretty die-hard Star Wars fan, and have a replica lightsaber that Augustine absolutely demands to play with every time he comes over. He doesn't actually like Star Wars he says, but lightsabers are ok. I usually get whacked a good many times by "accident". We also have a battery-operated back-rub-bug that has green light up feet. Very Aug indeed. So the laser pointer is a by-product of all things lasers and light-ups he encounters at casa-de-uncleHep.
(3) Our final errand was getting Aunt Brienne some Star Bucks. He obviously takes his cold, because he went straight for the chocolate milk ("kanye"), and even thought we should grab an apple juice box for Olive! I assured him Olive had some at her house, but he still mulled it over pretty hard before consenting to the greater wisdom. Best hour and a half of my week!
Arriving home we presented our gifts to those left behind. Aunt Brienne was most pleased with her Caramel Hot Chocolate, but the kittens were over-taken immediately by the obsessive wantings of Izzie Puppy, who craves the laser point more than anything else in the world. FACT- Izzie got so excited from having Augy point the laser around the room and chasing it, she peed in the middle of the downstairs... twice. Once Friday, again Saturday morning. Augustine later quietly told her not to do that again. It's 50/50 whether Zule got the message or not.
Wrapping up the evening with Augustine is always fun; we simply put in a family DVD favorite, Emmett Otters Jugband Christmas. For the record, Chuck isn't a bad gang leader, he's just misunderstood. The Riverbottom Nightmare Band is and always will be an outlet for attention-starved muppets. Think about it. And don't hock your son's tool box to buy clothes. Come on Ma Otter, you're better than that!
Magic Stars Cereal! The only way to roll AM style when the Aug is in for the weekend. I got a solid 3 hours sleep Friday night, mostly because our bed is designed for 2 people, 3 cats and a dog; adding a child isn't what the designers intended. So having my arm dangling off the side and having one of Augy's legs drapped on me all night with 2 kittens by my ankles and Izzie watching and being jealous all night induced Tolkienesque dreams and waking up at 5:30 am. Breakfast first, then a good old fashion laying in bed telling knock-knock jokes ensued. There certainly was not a "chocolate ice cream brunch" an hour later either! Augustine told us the "funniest thing he's ever done at our house" was when he was randomly talking and burped really loud mid-sentence. We laughed about that for a long time. Then Brienne put the "Heir of Sigler House" in the bathtub with about 15 rubber ducks and let him splash around a while.
Finally our visit started to wind down, so Augy and I hooked up the PlayStation 2 and settled in for a few good rounds of Tony Hawk Underground and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. He loved the skateboarding, mostly jumping off the Boston pier into the river... again and again. Star Wars is a little trickier with the controls, and I don't like playing it much either. He let it slide. (whew!) All in all a great 12-15 hours of solid nephew spoiling and random silliness. We drew a couple pictures for Mommy and Ma-Ma and Pa-Pa that he colored; I was pleased to see he took the drawing of "him with a lightsaber" and decided to keep that for himself. Ah- and so it begins with the sci-fi minded child. I also assured him that my Snake Eyes action figure will be making the move with us, so he can play with it at the new house. With all the major events covered, he relented (rather quickly) to Pa-Pa picking him up for the day and going off for even more adventures. Then, and only then...finally...our pets slept. :)
Too be a kiddo again- AoH
