I was stunned by the sheer amount of giggling. It was like a wall of giggles. Phil Spector would have been impressed. The last time I had seen the Shakopee Town Square Theater so crowded it was for The Omen on 06/06/06. As we wheeled into the super-secret back parking lot, I fully believed that [...]

Jaycie and Max spent the night last night because none of us wanted to get up before 7 a.m., and today is the last day that I’ll be babysitting them this summer. Sunday they leave for two weeks in Michigan followed by a week in South Dakota. And, hopefully, I’ll get a job.
They were, of [...]

Max is sitting on the floor in the little cubby between the La-Z-Grrl and the couch. He is play his DS. I am not sure why he’s sitting there because sometimes I don’t like to ask questions. He’s humming to himself.
“Look Aunt Jodi,” he says. The only thing visible from my vantage point is his [...]

Jaycie made pet rocks for everyone. Mine is Spike, the orange rock on the right with the blue leash. She came with a nifty birth certificate listing her likes and dislikes. I loved her immediately and planned to spend a lot of quality time with her.
However a nefarious rocknapper had other plans for Spike.

Max rocknapped [...]

Max’s new thing is Austin Powers. I think he’s watched the sanitized versions on TBS about 1000 times. He likes to YouTube scenes and memorize the dialog. Today he has been talking in a British accent about farting and not eating Bigglesworth. Since I haven’t really seen any of the movies, I have no idea [...]

Last week Max decided that his cat, Memphis “Turdie” Hislastname, needed a gmail account. He used Big Betty to create the account and set it so that it automatically logs in whenever you start Windows.
Yesterday, I was using Betty to do some stuff and noticed that Memphis was logged in so I started bugging [...]

One
Max on top of the jungle gym starts shouts down to Nolan calling him the Boogeyman.
Nolan climbs the swirly slide, gets to the top, shoves his finger in his nose and wipes it on Max’s shirt.
I call no foul because it’s funny.
Two
Max: I’m bored.
Me: I’m not.
Max: What are you doing?
Me (singing to the tune of [...]

There’s an enormous pine tree across the street from Supergenius HQ. The lowest branches of the tree are about a foot and a half off the ground. Hanging by a thread, literally, from one of the bottom branches is a dead bird. It’s been there since Monday.
I am not sure how the bird got tangled [...]

Jaycie and Max are making me lunch. I think we’re playing some sort of restaurant game. Jaycie took my order on a notebook and Max proclaimed himself chef. This is probably not one of my better ideas, playing along with this. I suspect the mess in the kitchen will not be worth the “fun” we’re [...]

Max & Jaycie have been here for all of 24 minutes and oh, the hilarity it has been non-stop. Upon walking into Supergenius HQ Max announced he was gassy today and proceeded to spend the next five minutes “farting.”
After five minutes of farting, I asked him what exactly his problem was and he broke down [...]

Max is sitting on the fabulous blue couch, Big Betty resting on his lap and he’s laughing his head off. I’m sitting in the La-Z-Grrl ostensibly working on a freelance project that is due tomorrow, but really I’m just catching up on some blog reading. While watching the Today show, we saw one of those [...]

For the next two weeks, I’ll be babysitting Jaycie (10) and Max (9) during the week. It’s going to be a bit of an adjustment. First of all, I have to get up at some sixish in the a.m. which is some kind of nonsense. And then there’s the whole spending 45 hours a week [...]

Max is growing his hair out. He hasn’t cut it in months and months. He has curly hair so he’s got this odd, huge whiteboy ‘fro going on. Yesterday I had to babysit all the kidlings while Sister #3 met with her lawyer.
I was asking Max about his hair when he told me to [...]

Choosey nephews choose Skippy.

First with Liam, who is two:
“Ouch you are on my arm,” I said.
“There are two puppies,” he said, pointing to the TV that was playing Pound Puppy Adventures or something like that. “Two. He fell and hurt his hand. That’s a big shrragon.”
“Dragon?” I asked.
“Big dragon. Oh no he is going to eat the puppy. [...]