Sarah and I recently went to Portland to visit my sister (Mandy) and brother-in-law (Mark) and their kids (Lexi and Noah). It was a really nice time. I’ve only seen her kids a handful of times in my life, so it’s a nice treat to get to hang out with them. She’s done an excellent job of propping us up as superstars to them, so when Aunt Sarah and Uncle Jeff come to visit they’re really excited to spend time with us, which is cool.

Lexi is three and she’s just getting into the understanding that she can use logic to get her way. One day I took her for a walk on the bike trails behind Mandy’s house. She’s done this walk many times and she has a share of landmarks that she has to stop at, mostly to prolong her time spent away from home and the rules that go with it. She’s either not prepared to admit this or not quite old enough to grasp her real motivations, so she has to develop a logical reason for each side trip.

The first stop was the fountain in their neighbor’s yard. She loves to stick her hands in it and grab at the bubbling streams of water. On this trip, she decided her hands were dirty and she really need to clean them. The day before, there was a rock that really needed a good washing. I recognized her stalling tactic but admired her determination all the same.

The next landmark was a park bench on the trail, which we had to stop at because she was tired. Never mind that the minute we stopped at the bench she had no interest in sitting on it. It was a valuable way to kill a few minutes, so it went in the travel guide as a bike trail must-see.

Next stop was a little bridge overlooking a somewhat rancid-looking stream. Here, I decided to stretch my creative muscles by suggesting that we throw some crap in the water to see what happened. She immediately ascertained that the more things she could find to throw in the water, the longer she could avoid returning to her normal life. So we gathered up a bunch of pinecones and tossed them over the bridge, me hanging on to her for dear life with the overwhelming fear that I would have to explain to my sister how one of her children had come to have her brains dashed against a bunch of rocks while under my supervision.

Of course, one batch wasn’t enough, so we had to go back and get more pinecones “because [she] had to throw her pinecones because [she] liked throwing pinecones and that’s why [she] had to throw them because [she] liked it.” And then another batch, and then another batch. And then rocks. And then dandelions. As we were throwing things into the water, a giant sea otter or water weasel or something floated by. I pointed it out to her excitedly, but she didn’t really see how an otter would help her kill more time and went about her business, unimpressed.

After a good 20 minutes of polluting the creek, I decided it was time to go home. Lexi was smart enough to know that “just one more time” could quickly stretch into “just 30 more times” if she played her cards right. And this is when one has to weigh the benefits of being a cool uncle against the benefits of not having to waste anymore of my day tossing pinecones from an eight foot high bridge. As much as I admired Lexi’s logic that the rest of the pinecones needed to join their friends in the water, I had to rely on the illogical explanation that we had to leave because I said so. Sometimes, reasoning is no match for the ability to pick a child up and carry her wherever you need to go.

Noah went out with us the next day and came back beet red after about 5 minutes in the sun. He’s a little too young to mess with logic, but Sarah had a field day trying to explain to Mandy that we weren’t trying to break her kids. Luckily, Mandy’s pretty unconcerned about what shape her kids come back in, as long as they’re still breathing and she doesn’t have to deal with them for awhile. A few days later he sprained his leg while going down a slide and has to spend the next four weeks in a cast. Sarah and I managed to hotfoot it out of town before we could take the blame.

But that’s all a tangent. The reason I wrote this post is to explain that my sister has ruined all hopes of me leading a productive life by sending me home with a Nintendo DS game called Professor Layton and the Curious Village. It’s painfully addictive.

I’ll leave you with a picture of Noah and Lexi dressed as Sonny and Cher, as kids are known to do every now and again.