Last night, Dave and I picked up our 10-year-old nephew, Gaming Nephew, who’s staying with us for the weekend.

That’s a picture at right that I took of him this morning enjoying a bowl of Life cereal (with vanilla soy milk) with his light-up Indiana Jones spoon. He actually brought the spoon with him from home. This kid is friggin awesome. I’m totally not returning him to his parents.

We’re having a fun time together this morning while Dave’s at work. I was worried that he’d be bored with old Aunt Eve, but as it turns out he’s quite impressed with my knowledge of Star Wars, classic arcade games, LEGO, and this summer’s upcoming movies.

This is the first time he’s staying over by himself (without his older brother and/or sister). He’s a very regimented child, so he doesn’t often stray from his daily routines, which is why he’s hardly ever stayed with us. But yesterday, he had his mom (Dave’s sister Al) call us and ask if he could come for the weekend. We were so thrilled, we ran right out after work last night and got him.

They live about 60 miles away in Long Island, so by the time we got there, hung out a little while, then got back to Brooklyn it was 11pm. But that didn’t stop us from making a run to the supermarket so that I could get the cereal with the Light-Up Indiana Jones Spoon in it. Yes, I know, I already have one, but um, I want every color, ok? Plus, I’m collecting tokens from the boxes so that I can send away for the Indiana Jones Search Light.

So, there we are in the supermarket and I’m loading like five boxes of sugary cereal into the cart and the Nephew’s eyes are bulging in disbelief. “What’s the matter?,” I asked him. “Is it that you’ve never seen someone buy this much cereal at once?” He shook his head, affirmative.

After scouring the store for something he’d want to eat — chocolate chip waffles, ice cream Dibbs, and Easy Mac N Cheese, good lord — we headed to the checkout counter. As the child helped Dave pack the bags (I nearly fell over in shock), I paid for the groceries acting like, “Yes, the cereal is for the child, oh the kids these days.”

This is why I love kids. They make great cover.

Oh, and before you condemn me for letting him get that crap food, don’t worry. This is also the child who, although his parents say he’ll only eat a handful of foods, we’ve gotten to drink soy milk and eat “chikn” nuggets and vegan mexican food and he didn’t even know it, and if he did, he didn’t complain about it.

Anyhow, the Nephew is really looking forward to seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, so we’re going to take him to see it on Sunday. I’m hoping that my experience the second time around seeing it through a child’s eyes will be a better one for me (see my heartbreaking review of the film HERE). I have a feeling it will.

But during the car ride last night we found out that the Nephew has never seen the original Indy trilogy. :::gasp::: What kind of a parent lets their kid get to 10 years old and NOT see the Indy movies? That’s just bad parenting right there. Now the plan for Saturday is to have a Raiders/Temple of Doom/Last Crusade marathon.

The Nephew is really excited about it. He really loved the National Treasure movies, which is fine, but then he asked us if the Indy movies were like the National Treasure films. Eek! See, again, I say this is bad parenting. How do you let your child grow up thinking that National Treasure is the template for all of these adventure movies? Tragic. Well, don’t worry, we’ll fix all that this weekend.

I’ve hardly written about Gaming Nephew because every since I became his Aunt six years ago when he was only 4 (actually, it was at his birthday party that Dave first told me he loved me … aww) he was very into video games and not much else. We haven’t been able to spend the alone time with him like we have with his siblings, who we’ve taken to concerts, museums, sightseeing in the city, tons of movies, etc. But now the Nephew has matured a lot and while he’s still massively into gaming, he’s also learning to play the bass (plus he plays stand-up bass in his elementary school orchestra), he’s getting into Star Wars and other movies that we love, he’s very smart, does excellent in school, and is very respectful. The list goes on about how good this child is. I can understand why my sister-in-law was getting chest pains at the thought of him being away from her all weekend, lol. He’s not the child you send away to relatives so that you can get a break. The kid put the groceries in the trunk, for heaven’s sake! After that, I called his mom and asked if he does laundry too (not yet, unfortunately).

While I’ll hold off on giving him household chores, we are letting him write something for Geeks of Doom. Like I said, he’s very smart and articulate, and on the way home, he told us about games he’s playing in a way in which it sounded like it would make a great review for the site. I think that’s a nice touch, to have the 10 year old’s perspective on all these games that are basically aimed for kids. Dave’s eyes lit up with the revelation that he’d just found an heir to the Geeks of Doom empire.

Nice

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