Crazy Nephews

My brother, Christofer, called Sunday morning. “Dude, is there any way you can watch the boys this afternoon?” he asked breathlessly. Jen took Ella to the hospital. I’m running up there to meet her.” My pointer finger was on their Upper West Side buzzer fifteen minutes later. I could hear Ethan and Edward’s tiny feet…

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Rock ‘N Roll Reconsidered

For years now, I’ve tossed around “rock ‘n roll” as an adjective. Sure, it’s a popular musical genre that evolved in the United States after World War II that combines African American rhythms and blues culture, country and gospel. And yeah, its instrumentation is typically guitars, bass and drums (typically a boogie woogie blues rhythm…

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Street Fair Rules

The balloons were Trojan Horses, really, or slight of hand at best; mere diversions intended to lure the children closer before handing off a pamphlet to the smiling parents gently instructing, “What do you say?” Once in Ethan and Edward’s hands, the shiny, green and orange West Side YMCA helium balloons trumped all of the…

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The Great Easter Train Wreck

It’s a recipe for disaster: a five and three-year-old boys, plastic railroad tracks, a wind-up diesel engine, and two fists full of chocolate eggs. Hollywood blockbuster and dime store novel alike are rife with the plot line. Aunt, uncles, grandparents, nieces and nephews gather around the holiday table and chaos ensues. The nephew kicks the…

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My Intrepid Nephews

Can you imagine New York’s $44M, 66-year-old gray behemoth, USS Intrepid, through my pint-sized, toe-headed nephews’ wide eyes? This thing’s 900-feet-long and 190-feet-wide and loaded with thirty aircraft, including a Navy F-14 Tomcat (as in, “I feel the need, the need for speed!), Harrier Jump Jet, F-4 Phantom, Israeli Kfir, French Etendard, Russian MiG-15, 17…

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Planned Parenthood

On the street, Edward refused to take my hand, issuing a long, withdrawn, “Nooooooooooo!” So I carried him. On the subway platform, the roar of the trains scared him. So I held him, whispering, “I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.” Abbi and I took Ethan and Edward for a few, long hours…

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She’s My Niece

My college band, Smokey Junglefrog, released its third and final album, “She’s My Niece,” concurrent to our disbanding on May 15, 1993. The title of the album was borrowed from a birthday card my bassist, Paul Perreault, had given me. The front of the card was a mixtape with a collection on niece-oriented songs: She’s…

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Warning: Candy Canes Create Crazy (Adorable) Kids

Like most decisions, it was made quickly and without any sense of ramifications. Fast forward three hours. The air is filled with the sound of Christmas music, and the smell of baking cookies. Candlelight casts warmth across a room full of familiar faces. Down the hall, five adorable children under five-years-old are bouncing on our…

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Boo! (Or, Crossing The River Styx In Costume)

My favorite Halloween was at the end of my least-favorite year. I was ten-years-old. My parents were separated, soon-to-be divorced (saw that comin’, right?). My mother was in Washington, DC. Chris and I were with our father in Oak Park, Illinois. It was, as I’ve written before, a particularly dark, confusing and chaotic time. In…

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Happy Birthday Edward!

My nephew, Edward Isaac, turned two on Thursday. We celebrated Sunday morning. Two short weeks ago, Edward was wrestling with just a few new words: blue, mama, dadda. Yesterday, though, he was forming complete sentences like, “I got it.” It’s an amazing, exciting process to watch. As is the dynamic between he and his older…

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