The Favorite Aunt

I’m in the San Francisco Bay area this week, down from Portland for the annual Macworld trade show. If you’re at the show, come say “hi” at booth S313. (It’s a crazy week for those of us who work in the Mac industry–if I don’t get a chance to blog again before January 20, I would not be surprised.)

Yesterday I went out to brunch with my very good friends Greg and Yunor (Greg is the “boss” of me, Yunor is his partner) and our friend Sean, also down for Macworld. We were at a pretty funky neighborhood joint in Castro Valley called JDs. We sat outside (yay, California!), a couple of tables away from a big family.

While we were waiting for our food, Yunor noticed that the little girl at that table, who was about 4, had wandered over to an empty table, picked up the salt and pepper shakers and licked the tops of them. [Pause for you to say “Eww”.] None of the adults at her table seemed to have noticed what she was doing.

Yunor let the waitress know, and she promptly removed the shakers from the table. The incident prompted discussion amongst the four of us (and the waitress) on the classic theme of “What is wrong with those parents?” and its accompanying riffs:
- “How could they just let her roam around the restaurant?”
- “My parents would never let me get away with that.”
- “Don’t you hate how some parents have no clue how inconsiderate they are?”

I started to feel a little sheepish about being a bit judgmental, and said, “Actually, sometimes when I’m out with the niece/nephews, letting them run around a bit, I wonder if people are saying the same things about me.”

Everyone else at the table is thinking about starting a family. I’m sure when they have kids, there will be moments out in public where total strangers will think “What is wrong with THOSE parents?” I’ve definitely learned, from observing parenting up close, that it’s an ever-changing mixture of art and science. Kids don’t behave and sometimes there is nothing you can do about it.

Still, I am pretty sure that I’ve never let Jack-Jack lick the tops of salt shakers while we have been out… and my parents certainly would have never let me do that.

Over Christmas, I got to spend time with my best friends, who live in Seattle. Charlotte, their daughter, and I like to make goofy videos for YouTube. Photo Booth is great for taking “photo booth” style snap portraits, but in the latest version of Mac OS X (Leopard), Photo Booth can make videos as well as take pictures.

We tried some of the fun animated backdrops that come with it. We could have done a better job finding a blank wall to go behind us, so Photo Booth could have more accurately inserted the roller coaster and aquarium scenes.

But that did not diminish our fun! (And it kinda reminds me of some of those ’60s psychedelic videos…)

Aunt hack ratings:

Age group: 9-12
Duration of activity: 30 minutes
Cost: Photo Booth comes free with your Mac; iMovie is part of the $79 iLife ‘08 suite
Child/aunt fun ratio: 60/40

I composed the video using iMovie ‘08. A lot of people complained that this latest version of iMovie is a step backwards, including me. But then I heard Bob LeVitus of the Houston Chronicle speak. He said that he has cut in half the time it takes him to edit family videos! So I gave it a tryout, and sure enough, you can very quickly edit a little video project. And iMovie ‘08 seamlessly uploads your video to YouTube.

I have hours of video of the niece/nephews that I’ve never edited, because it used to be a minimum 2 hour project – and usually much longer. Now I can do nice short videos in a half hour, or less. This Photo Booth movie took 10 minutes to edit, add music and transitions, and upload to YouTube.

Somewhere there is a dividing line between quality and quantity. I’d rather edit more cute little movies of the kids with iMovie ‘08 than fewer videos that are more sophisticated. I’ll always use Final Cut for documentary filmmaking. But I’ve learned to love iMovie because it takes away the barrier to just getting the kid videos done.

If you want to do even more cool stuff with your iSight camera, check out Freak Show, a cool little piece of software developed by my friend Cosmo. It’s only $12.95, and it’s quite fun. Charlotte and I did a couple YouTube pieces with that last year.

If that title makes you squirm, sorry, but that’s what I saw last night. I was playing with Violet and Dash, when Jack-Jack calls me to look at him. He was holding his right hand out, and it was literally dripping blood. I have seen a few scrapes with kids before, but not that much blood.

He wasn’t crying or freaking out, and there was a bandage already on the hand, so I was confused as to how it had happened. And I froze for a second. I didn’t know what to do first. Court, my brother-in-law, was nearby, and I managed to say, “Hey, come here. Jack-Jack’s hand is dripping with blood.”

It turns out that Jack-Jack had gotten a nasty cut over the Christmas holidays while visiting Court’s family back east. Somehow he opened that back up. Court carried him off to clean up the cut and rebandage it.

Later, Uncle Bob said “Did you lift up his arm over his head?” I said no, that I didn’t know what to do right away. And I admitted my embarrassing secret: I hesitated because I was afraid of getting blood on myself. Bob said, “You’re coming with me to a first aid course at the Red Cross.” Bob is required to attend these because he runs a foster home for developmentally-disabled adults.

I guess I need to add “Learn First Aid” to my 2008 Aunt Resolutions.

Like most people, I have some personal resolutions for 2008. I thought it would also be interesting to come up with some aunt-related resolutions.

1) Get more pictures taken with the niece/nephews

I don’t have enough photos of myself and the niece/nephews. Instead of wishing I had more from when they were younger, I’m going to make sure to take more now before they get any older. That means handing the camera to someone else once in a while, instead of just taking photos or video myself.

(Right: me and Violet when she was not yet one year old, I think…)

2) Find good healthy foods that the kids like

So often when I babysit the kids, dinner will be something from the freezer or the takeout window. I know one easy healthy food that they like: cucumbers, sliced up. They’ll eat those as if they were cookies. I need to figure out more meals that I like to cook and they like to eat.

To that end, I’ve put a couple books on hold at the library:

The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals

Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food.

Sigh. I hate to be reduced to being sneaky or deceptive, but hopefully I’ll get some ideas for making good stuff that tastes good.

3) Find new music for the kids.

I’m ready to move beyond Dan Zanes. I’m ready to move beyond playlists of 1960s pop music. I want to discover some new artists that both the kids and I can listen to.

I’ve started with the Fids and Kamily Music Awards (yes, you read that right), which I discovered via Jumping Monkeys. Listen to Episode 24 of the podcast, when they announce the 2007 awards and play short samples from all the winners. That makes it easy to get an idea of which ones might interest you.

I’m going to start with My Green Kite by Peter Himmelman. He’s got a big bouncy hip sound and humorous, interesting lyrics. Like Dan Zanes, he started doing “grown-up” music before recording albums that are kid-friendly.

4) Spend more one-on-one time with Dash.

Dash will be 8 years old in March. I think I need to make an extra effort to spend more time with him. It’s so much easier for me to relate to Violet (9), girl-to-girl, or Jack-Jack (3), aunt-to-toddler. I’ve had sleepovers and playdates with those two, but the last time Dash had a sleepover, he was 4 (and Violet was included).

I grew up with sisters. We had a brother (Uncle Bob), but he was 7 years younger than me. I think I feel less confident with boys. Dash and I always get along fine, but I think one-on-one time really lets you get to know a kid.

I want to read Raising Cain: Protecting The Emotional Life of Boys, which I noticed at my sister’s house. Maybe that will help me get a clue about boys.

Any ideas to help me keep these resolutions? A book, a recipe, a CD that’s helped you?

Here’s another great way to amuse your niece/nephews that doesn’t involve TV, video or candy.

Macs come with an application from Apple called Photo Booth. Using the iSight camera in your Mac, you can take little snapshots that can be emailed or used as profile icons. I just discovered this 4-up “burst” mode that will take four shots in rapid succession. When I say “rapid”, I mean it. The shots are taken just a second or so apart. A real photo booth gives you time to prep for each shot, but with Photo Booth, you have to be fast.

In Seattle, I challenged Charlotte (11) to a face-making race. “Straight, sad, happy, mad,” I said. It’s really hard to do when the camera is going off so quickly. We probably did 20 takes before we got the one on the right that was satisfactory, with much hilarity. When Emily (18) and I got back to Portland yesterday, we played the same game with the same hilarious results.

Aunt hack ratings:
Age group: 7-18
Duration of activity: 30-45 minutes
Cost: none (if you have a Mac)
Child/aunt fun ratio: 50/50

I apologize to the non-Mac-owning aunts–I couldn’t come up with any Windows equivalent for Photo Booth. If you know of one, please share in the comments!

After unwrapping many Christmas presents and enjoying much food and wine with my friends Barb and John, it was suggested I take Charlotte out to the local Blockbuster to find a DVD we all could watch.

Perusing the shelves, I spotted Stardust, starring Claire Danes and Charlie Cox (a cutie I hadn’t seen before). The movie caught my attention because it also stars Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert De Niro. I remember seeing a preview in the theater, and mistaking it at first for The Golden Compass — it’s got a similar visually fantastic style.

I tried to decipher the review blurbs on the DVD case, knowing that to be a fool’s errand. And then I remembered I had that ultimate aunt tool with me: the iPhone. I quickly called up the Internet Movie Database, and found that Stardust had received a rating of 8.1 out of 10 from IMDb users. That’s high, and so I felt encouraged.

(High School Musical 2 just came out on DVD, but I knew better than to suggest that. When I asked her yesterday if she’d seen the first one, Charlotte sniffed, “Yes. Boring.” That’s the difference between an almost 12-year-old and a 9-year-old like Violet.)

Charlotte picked up “Christmas with the Kranks“. I seemed to remember hearing that it was terrible, but I didn’t have to convince Charlotte to take my word for it. Again using my trusty iPhone, I learned that it had a 4.6 rating. Not good. As I said to her, “I don’t trust these IMDb ratings 100%, but I do think a movie that has been rated twice as high will probably be better.”

Stardust was even better than that. It’s very funny and exciting. There’s swordplay and witches and amazingly imaginative sets, like the pirate ship dirigible captained by De Niro. “Princess Bride” meets “Pirates of the Caribbean”. It features some amusing cameos, including a fun one with Ricky Gervais which will please fans of the original British version of The Office.

It’s rated PG-13. I do think some of the violence would be too intense for Violet and Dash. A lot of knifing and stabbing and gutting of animals… There’s also a whole riff on pirates and cross-dressing that would probably go over their heads–and that’s one of the funniest parts.

I hate shopping in general, and holiday shopping in particular. I like giving nice presents, though. One of my goals for this blog is to share some of the good ideas I get for presents to give to niece/nephews of all ages. If you want to share your recommendations, you can do so in the comments or email me (favoriteaunt at mac dot com).

I decided to get everyone’s presents at Powell’s Books, our local book mecca. I did a surgical strike, going in on Tuesday morning and only giving myself 35 minutes on the parking meter.

Here’s how I did:

Jack-Jack: Bob: And 6 More Christmas Stories by Sandra Boynton

Jack-Jack just turned 3 in November, and I bought him a couple of books that he really liked. One was another book by Sandra Boynton, The Going-To-Bed Book. The “Bob” book seemed like a good one because a) Jack-Jack has an Uncle Bob and a Grandpa Bob, and he might even be about to “read” the title; and b) this board book has cute tabs down the side for each of the 7 stories, and I think that’s just fun.

Dash: Peanuts Treasury

I have fond memories of the hours I spent reading the Peanuts Treasury. Dash has gotten to be a very good reader. (His vocabulary has grown as well: he uses the word “precisely” all the time now, which cracks me up.) The language of “Peanuts” is sophisticated, which is good exposure for a young reader. Kids will not get all the nuances of the humor (I remember wondering what the heck is a “Van Gogh” and why does Snoopy have one in his doghouse) but there is plenty that they will relate to.

Violet: Peter and the Shadow Thieves by Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson

I got Violet the first book in the series, “Peter and the Starcatchers”. It’s a very imaginative prequel to Peter Pan. The book is beautifully designed as well–nice compact trim size, gorgeous jacket, great illustrations. I met Ridley Pearson a couple years ago at the Portland Wordstock event (it was my volunteer job to shuttle him from/to the airport) and he really impressed me. He gave a reading and he was mobbed with young readers.

I’m also getting 10 crisp $1 bills for both Violet and Dash so they can put them in their new 3-part Moonjar banks, part of the Preschool Money Manager from The Tessy & Tab Reading Club. Now that they have the banks, it makes it kind of fun to give them money to divide up between the Spend, Save and Share sections of the bank. I think the recommended percentage is 70/20/10. So they should be able to figure out the math on $10.

Charlotte: Alphabet Rubber Stamps from Cavallini & Co.

Charlotte’s almost 12, and lives with her parents (my best friends from college) in Seattle. She is artistic and likes words, being an avid reader and a talented writer. I found a cool, kinda retro rubber stamp set with all the letters of the alphabet by Cavallini & Co. I would have fun playing with that, and I think she would too. They have some other cool-looking stamp sets (Paris! Butterflies!) but no e-commerce on their website, which seems bizarre in this day and age. Glad I found them at Powell’s.

I also bought a cookbook for my sister and brother-in-law: Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. They have been having organic vegetables delivered weekly by Pioneer Organics, and so they are always on the lookout for new vegetable recipes.

Today I realized that I still needed to have some little gifts for Emily and Anne. Emily’s in Portland right now, on college break, and we are driving up to Seattle together (of course, I will be doing all the driving), and her sister Anne is coming up from Corvallis, where she lives with her dad, to ride with us. I’ll drop them off at their mom’s house, outside of Seattle.

I headed to one of my favorite stores in the neighborhood, New Renaissance Bookshop. Besides books and DVDs on a wide range of spiritual practices, they have a lot of nice gifts: teas, essential oils, crystals, candles, chimes, etc. I found Matcha (Green Tea) Natural Eye & Face Masks which looked like it would be fun for the girls. I usually avoid giving people “things” that will take up space and need to be dusted, stored and eventually decluttered. I like the idea of this product, which they can enjoy and use up. It comes from a company called Muddy H20, located in nearby Vancouver, Washington.

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As I mentioned, I’ll be heading up to Seattle for the Christmas holiday, and spending Christmas Eve with Charlotte and her parents, after spending a night with Emily and Anne and their mom. My sister Peg and her family are headed back east to spend time with her in-laws. I hope you are getting to spend time with the kids in your lives this holiday — and that they don’t drive you too crazy.

Or vice versa.

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December 26 | Update

It’s the day after Christmas, so I thought I should follow up with a report on how the gifts were received.

Jack-Jack unwrapped his book and exclaimed “Bob the Reindeer!” We all stared at him, open-mouthed: had he actually learned how to read that at age 3? Then Peg figured it out: “Do they have that book at your school?” Apparently they do. Which surprises me, because his previous Montessori school did not approve of books with animals that wear clothes and talk.

Dash and Violet were a little underwhelmed with their books. At least Dash didn’t say “That’s not a very cool present,” which he did say when I brought him an Empire State Building pencil sharpener from NYC. (At which point, Uncle Bob told him the entire story of King Kong to convince him that the Empire State Building really is cool.)

Dash and Violet were thrilled with the ten $1 bills though.
Charlotte did like her stamp set. I guess I will have to get my own…

Anne and Emily really liked the green tea mud masks. But mainly they were just grateful that I was able to fit their many big suitcases into my VW Beetle for the trip to their mom’s. I guess that’s one of the things you learn as you get more experience traveling: just because you CAN fit something into your suitcase(s) doesn’t mean you SHOULD pack it.

I’m sitting in a cafe while waiting for Emily to finish a ballet class. She just finished her first semester at college and she’s spending part of her break here with me in Portland. Ballet is her major and she needed to get to a class tonight at her former ballet studio, located on the opposite side of town. It takes about an hour and a half each way on the bus, so of course, I offer to drive her.

Ideally, Emily could just borrow my car and drive herself over there, but she still doesn’t have her driver’s license. As someone who could barely wait until the DMV office opened on my 16th birthday, I had a hard time understanding how Emily got to be 18 without getting a driver’s license.

Then I tried to teach her myself.

She’s a smart level-headed kid. She seems to be fairly coordinated and to have decent vision. But something about being behind the wheel makes her nervous. The first time we took my car out, after she got her learner’s permit, she did more damage in terms of dollar value than I have ever done to any car in 31 years of driving. Sigh…

I found a nice safe, quiet, empty parking lot to practice. I did not anticipate the damage potential of the curb and trees. We had driven around the lot a few times, when I said, “OK, now pull into that space.” As she did, the car wasn’t aligned just right, and she accidentally floored it rather than hitting the brakes. Wham! My little red VW Beetle went up over the curb and was stopped, luckily, by a tree.

In that split second, nearly $2500 worth of damage was done. (Luckily, insurance covered most of that.) But equally damaged was my feeling of auntly competence. I thought I’d be able to teach Emily how to drive with a few short lessons. Instead, I had screwed up. We should have spent the whole day just starting and stopping until it was more second nature to her.

I insisted we have a second lesson as soon as the car was repaired. It was one of those “get back on the horse” things for me as well as her. We sat in an even bigger parking lot with no curbs or trees inside the perimeter.

She took a deep breath, looked down at the pedals and said, “OK, the right is the brake and the left is the gas pedal?”

Tonight I’m googling driving schools in Portland; it will probably be cheaper.

Image by Chris Campbell via Flickr, used under a Creative Commons license.

I met up with sister Peggy and the kids last night at La Buca (a good place to take kids in Portland). As I sat down, Jack-Jack greeted me with the question: “Who’s your Daddy?”

It’s actually a fun game I started to play with him in the last few weeks. He’s started to grasp the complexities of family relationships. He is fascinated by hearing how he is connected to moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, and, of course, aunts and uncles. He’s starting to get the hang of it.

I threw the question back at him: “Who is my daddy, Jack-Jack?”

“Grandpa Bob,” he says with a grin.

And so the game continues: “Who is my brother?”

“Judy.” Oops.

“Then who is my sister?”

“Uncle Bob.”

It wouldn’t be fun if he knew all the answers cold.

Five years ago, my sisters and I started a reading magazine for preschoolers. My sister Judy, the serial entrepreneur, was the motivating force behind it. She got the idea years and years ago, when she was volunteering at a children’s hospital. She noticed that even little toddlers would watch TV all the time. Books required a grown-up to read them to you. What if there were reading materials that kids could do all by themselves?

The Tessy & Tab Reading Club was born. Together with our good friend and illustrator Rosie, we put out two issues per month with titles like “Bedtime”, “Airplane Trip”, “At the Zoo” and other fascinating topics for 3-year-olds.

I left the company a couple years ago to pursue a great opportunity with a small but growing Mac software company. So I cannot take an iota of credit for the latest brainstorm: The Preschool Money Manager.

This kit has everything that you’d need to get your preschooler ready to deal with money. It comes with an adorable bank from a company called Moonjar, which has three parts: Save, Share and Spend. Chores charts and allowance calculations are included. It also comes with two adorable issues of The Tessy & Tab Reading Club: “Spend, Share & Save” and “Yard Sale”.

This would make a great present for preschool kids. It’s only $19.95. (Remember: wealthy nieces and nephews will come in handy when you’re a little old lady…)

A subscription to the magazine is also a great gift. It’s $48 for 24 issues (1 year), and each issue comes addressed to the child with a note “Happy Reading From Aunt Jean” (or whatever your name happens to be). If you use the coupon code AUNT2FREE, you’ll get two free issues added to the subscription.