Nephews ROCK

I had to push back my scheduled trip to see my nephews this weekend. It sucks, but I only had to push it two weeks, so it's not as sucky as it could be. But now I'm having all kinds of nephew dreams, in which I'm with them and I'm sad because I know I won't see them for a while. Whenever I talk to my sister, I make her tell me nephew stories. Poor thing, like she isn't sick of LIVING their antics, much less recounting them for her desperate and childless sistah ☺ But she does. And the whole time we're talking, I can hear Claytie's little scruffy voice trying to tell her things "real quick" – and "real quick" to a 3-year old is not that quick to adults. I think it's totally adorable, though. "Mama, there was a bug on the porch, and, um, it was behind the chair and I, um, I, I, stepped on it………and, and……Brother touched it!!!! But, but, I wouldn't touch it!!! and, and………" You get the idea. MUFFIN.

The story she told me last night was about a little girl Claytie has befriended from his pre-school class. My sis said she kept hearing him talk about what sounded like "snee-naw" this and "snee-naw" that, and finally one day as she picked him up from class she said "WHAT is a "snee-naw?" Just as the words left her lips, she heard the voice of another mom nearby saying something like "Hurry up, Sneenaw, get your bag…". Sure enough, there's a little Indian girl named Snee-naw and I'm not even going to guess at the correct spelling. But how cute is it that Claytie was actually saying it right and no one understood what he was talking about? Maybe it's only cute to me, hmmm. Anyway, my sis went on to tell me this little girl is a doll, and she has a really short, pixie, cutie-pie haircut. She said for the longest time, Claytie thought she was a boy because of her short hair – he would say "Mama, why does that boy have EARRINGS??" (which is a whole other issue, like what's he gonna say the next time he's in Austin to visit his liberal-hippie Aunt???) and she would say "Because, Claytie, she's a GIRL!" Well I guess it finally sank in, as Snee-naw is his new girlfriend. He told her they even hold hands! (go ahead, I'm going to – awwwwwww!)

As a co-worker of mine pointed out, if I were my sis, I'd be so relieved she didn't have to go into more detail about what the difference is between a little boy and little girl – besides earrings, you know.