That’s how we bring up all children in our family: by ear.

I like to think I’m a good uncle.

Even though, I don’t really know my “real” nieces and nephews. I’ve seen Millie, once; I’ve seen Auden, once; I’ve never meet Vinnie. So, to make up for this: I give all my grand uncle-ness to a series of young cousins, whose mothers I grew up with, as my nieces, being the baby of the adopted family I claimed with their grandmother, who I took as my—

You know what, let me scratch that.

It’s too confusing.

My family tree, you know, is really just an assortment of random branches that were blown down during a storm, and happend to fall around an exposed root out in the yard. So, we’ll go with that.

Again. Ahem: I like to think I’m a good uncle.

I spend each Sunday afternoon with my current batch of nephews: A.K., 4; Conn, 3; and Wynn, 2. I do everything I can to encourage their imaginations (i.e., taking a puzzle box top and making into a pirate’s hat), but, every now and then they surprise me with their own little internal thinking skills.

For example: A.K. told me once when he grew up he wanted to be either a ninja or a box of crayons. When I asked him Why (for the box of crayons), he said, Well, everybody I know likes crayons.

Brilliant, huh? And somehow poignant.

Sometimes, it’s just plain funny what they say…and do. Last weekend, for instance, we were playing one of their favorite games. It’s called Crazy Bulls. And here’s how you play it: everyone crawls on all fours, making any very loud sound they care to, then they do a “bull run” down the long, long green carpet hallway at Nana’s, and then the Farmer has to give them candy.

This is played in rotation for…oh, let’s say, two hours.

So, last Sunday, we’re playing this game, and I’m the Farmer, and I’m running them down the hall (actually, I sat in the recliner at the east end of Nana’s house, where the family den is – we sit there after dinner and watch some television show about cows, ironically. We have a cattle farm, that’s why; I mostly just read the paper, as I don’t really care for cows as far as prime time viewing is concerned), anyway, I sat in the recliner and just watched them run back and forth, up and down the hall.

I was halfway through the Foxtrot comic when I heard Conn say, “Whew!” and then collapse. I jumped up and hoped he was fine (we’re having several medical scares with his health, as of late).

He was completely fine, though. Don’t worry.

I got down the hall, to him, and I said, “Conn, are you OK, buddy?”

He nodded, and looked up and said, “Yeah. Let’s just pretend like I’m a dead bull.”

He’s 3, for crying out loud.  

I can’t remember when I first even knew what death was, let alone want to play dead. I don’t think I started that until I was, at least, in first grade, which would be what six, and I didn’t want to do the May Day school production. I figured Conn must be tired, is all…

So, I started to say No, Conn, no dead bulls today. Let’s just take a break…but A.K. intervened.

“That’s not right, Conn.” (Good, good, A.K. will talk some sense into him, I thought).

“What, AA?” (That’s what Conn calls him).

“That’s not right!” (A.K. was getting a little loud, but I stood by, observing the natives in their natural habitat).

“What is.”

“Bulls don’t die like that! Gosh! They fall on their sides.”

At which point, Conn got up and proceeded to die, time after time, until A.K. pronounced it “good enough to do.” This took quite awhile; I had two pieces of Scotch Chocolate cake in the interim. Wynn, having found his way back to his own dinner plate (and believe me, he eats enough) decided he was through with deviled eggs and brown sugar ham. He was going to die like a real bull, too. Though it came out more like, “Ido wi’AA and Con-Con, me.”

I’m not sure how many minutes passed, in reality, but at some point, Nana came down the hall because “it’d gotten too quiet.” That’s how we bring up all children in our family: by ear. It’s also, incidentally, how one of my sisters learned to play the piano and my patience.

Nana came around the corner, and I’m sure Had She Not Loved and Brought Me Up with U.L., she would have thought I’d killed three children. They were all very silent I must agree, and laying on their sides, their little tongues sticking out. A.K. had been stubbornly insistent that they do this the right way or not at all.

(He is his mother’s son, of course).

But, what he hadn’t figured on was just how tired they all three were. And as I stood by, ever vigilant, he could have no way of knowing that I was simply allowing them to wear themselves out. I motioned to Nana to walk softly, just in case I was right.

And I was.

By the time she stepped down into the sitting room, where we’d been playing, all three of the boys were completely asleep. They looked dead, I know, but they weren’t. They were in a mad, fast world of dreams, and Wynn, as he usually does when he naps, had a slap-happy grin on his face.

God, I’d love to know what he dreams about.

I also wished I’d had a camera; it was such a sweet picture. All the more so, when you know just how aggravating three boys can be. I’ve got a white hair for each of them, but I learned a valuable lesson, all the same: it’s not always a bad thing to be bull-headed.

Especially not if, in the end, it helps you go to sleep.

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