Last week I had the pleasure of hanging out most of the day with my 4-year-old nephew Drew. We nicknamed him the bruiser — maybe because if there is a wrestling match going on, Drew is usually in the thick of it. He’s just a fun kid.
Drew’s like a little revisal expert — he makes you adjust or change your thought process.
For the past year, I thought he got my three daughter’s names confused. Not so. I finally figured out when we were having a snack in my kitchen last Friday that only one photo of my daughters confused him — the one hanging in my kitchen. He knew my eldest, Aly.
He knew my youngest, Phoebe. But when I asked him who the third girl was — he shyly grinned and shook his head. When I pulled out the Christmas photo of the “third girl’ with her husband and Tillman family — he named her without hesitation: “Chloe and Michael.”
So I again pointed to Chloe in the sister photo and said: “Drew this is Chloe too.” Whereupon he refuted my statement: “That’s a boy, cause he doesn’t have hair.” Now when I look at the photo of my three daughters hanging in the kitchen — I now notice that Chloe’s hair is pulled back and you can’t tell in the photo she has long hair.
It wasn’t too long after our “Chloe” conversation that Drew asked me to hand him the Christmas photo of his 5-year old triplet cousins that was perched over the refrigerator.
I watched him intently study the faces of Emery, Faith and Reese. I imagined what loving thoughts he was thinking, since they all attend the same preschool together. Breaking this quiet moment, Drew handed the photo back to me and declared matter-of-factly: “I’m not a cousin anymore.”
Well, any aunt worth her salt is obliged to ask: “Drew why aren’t you a cousin anymore?”
His succinct answer: “I quit.”
Never in my five full decades of life have I ever even considered that one could actually quit being a cousin. Who knew it could be that easy? Drew has a way of using a can opener to bring forth metal-tight possibilities. Not that I would ever want to quit being a cousin (and cousins Angie, Cathy, Mark, Lorrie and Brian — don’t get any ideas).
Drew hesitantly joined the hubby and I on a scheduled lunch date with some friends, who complimented Drew on his fine restaurant manners. The youngest of five, Drew confidently shook hands with our friends as we left and held the door open for me as we exited the building.
I’ve changed his nickname to Drew “eye-opener” Hommel.
