Musings on Aunthood

Last night, my nearly two-year-old niece, Jane Marie spent the night.

When Jane comes bounding up the walk to our front door, I wait by the window for the show to begin. When I open the door to let her in, she stumbles over the threshold with a “Whoa!” as if the step into my house just blew her mind. This is almost always followed immediately by, “Where’s Uncle David?” as she breezes past me and heads straight for the book box. Then she doesn’t bother to take off her coat before she makes herself right at home, legs tucked beneath her on our family room rug and reads every single book in the book box at lightening speed.

And when I say read, I mean read. No, she doesn’t know the principles of phonics and if you point to a word on the page, she generally can’t tell you what it says, but Jane knows books. Sometimes she need only hear a book once before she can sit down with it and tell you what it says on almost every page. Regular conversation is no different; she soaks it all up and you may have no idea she’s doing it until one day she spits it back at you and it sends you reeling. Like last night when she grabbed me by the hand and said, “Come here, sweetie pie!” I almost forgot I was talking to a toddler and started giving her my hotcake order, half expecting her to give me a wink and a coffee refill. Her comedic timing is impeccable.

And Finny, well, he’s smitten. Right now, Jane’s the closest thing Finny has to a sibling and he follows her every lead. “Gonna getchew!” she giggles as she bounces away from him and he follows, giggling his head off with no chance of every catching her. But sometimes she lets herself get caught and they embrace wholeheartedly with an awkward, somewhat painful looking hug that comes close to smothering or strangling Finny and sends them both teetering toward the floor. Finny wants everything Jane touches, but like a typical older sibling and a typical two-year-old, Jane’s not quite sure what to make of his undying devotion and often pulls coveted toys or books back with a commanding, “No, no Finny!” or my personal favorite, “No, Finny! Share it!”

Even if she is somewhat territorial at times, there’s no doubt Jane’s got Finny’s back. If ever Finny is upset, she turns to him with a compassionate, “What’s the matter, Finny?” In fact, this morning, when Finny woke up screaming his head off at 5:30 a.m. it was almost as if Finny had a second mother sleeping down the hall in a Pack n’ Play. Before I even had a chance to get out of bed, Jane was at attention calling down the hall, “Finny cryin’! Jill, Finny cryin’. Oh, Finny.” I’m sure if Jane had not been constricted by the walls of her Pack n’ Play, I would’ve found her in Finny’s room rocking him back to sleep herself.

Since Finny could not be consoled back to sleep, David took him downstairs, and I worked on seeing if I could get Jane back to sleep for another hour or so. I crept into Jane’s room where she was still muttering, “Finny. Finny. Cryin’.”

“Janie,” I whispered in my best it’s-the-middle-of-the-night voice, “It’s not time to get up yet. It’s time to sleep. Do you think you can go back to sleep?”

Her response, a decisive, “No way.”

So I brought her in bed with me thinking maybe it would be a treat to come into bed with Aunt Jill and we could snuggle and cuddle together and fall back asleep just like Finny and I sometimes do.

But this was not on Jane’s agenda.

“Whoa!” she said as we walked into my room. “What’s that?” she asked pointing to everything in sight. “Aunt Jill’s room! Whoa!”

As I laid her down next to me in bed, I whispered, “Okay, Janie, time to go back to sleep, so let’s just lay here and not talk. We’ll just think thoughts.” This was clearly the wrong approach because Jane thinks out loud in a stream of consciousness rarely punctuated by periods, commas, or transitions.

“Window! Pillows! Fan! Lamp!” she continued, beginning her own little game of I Spy.

“Okay, Janie, let’s be quiet now. Shhh….”

“Salad! Make me a salad!” It’s 5:45 a.m. Not the salad hour. In addition, I’m quite certain Jane’s never had salad in her life. “Baby sister. In tummy. Baby sister. I’m awake!” she exclaimed.

But tired, if not somewhat foolish Aunt Jill tried again, “Shhhh, Janie. Time to sleep.”

And then there was quiet for a moment or two. With only the sound of paci-sucking beside me, I thought, okay, maybe she will go back to sleep.

And then, “Jane’s back!” she said as she bolted up. “Finny and David. Let’s go play with Finny and David.” And I threw up my white flag and surrendered. After all, how could I go back to sleep when there was so much fun to be had?

Last night, Laurie and Mike went to a movie for entertainment, and I’m glad they got a chance to have a date to themselves. But truth be told, I think we got the better end of the deal. Jane Marie’s a one-woman show all packaged up in a petite little mop of blonde curls, and I’m privileged to be her aunt and have a front row seat to see each and every surprising, hilarious, and brilliant scene unfold.