A friend just gave me the book The Complete Book of Aunts by Rupert Christiansen. The books honors aunts that are real and fictitious. Write on the topic of aunts.
I'm the first to post and will post my sisters' links when they complete their assignments.
This assignment made me think of a general story line that I've read in student papers and maybe I've seen in movies or on television.
It's the story of the crazy, good-natured aunt who takes in her nieces or nephews for a short period of time and the kids get to do all the stuff they can't necessarily do at home. They get to stay up late, play all the time they are awake, go to movies, go to the zoo. They get a break from the stricter discipline of home life.
When I was a kid, I never thought to wish to have an aunt like this and I never did.
My mom's sister (Aunt Lila) is and my dad's sister (Aunt Ruth) were really nice to my sisters and me. We enjoyed visiting Aunt Lila every summer and I enjoyed the occasional visits Aunt Ruth made to Spokane or Kellogg, but neither one of them were really, well, crazy, crazy in the sense of saying, "Okay! What do you wanna do next? Do you want more ice cream? Shall we go shopping? Let's play Uno! Let's play Sorry! Have you guys had a chance to see "The Absent Minded Professor"? Let's go! It's really funny! Shall we make smores?"
Before I move forward, I need to make one thing clear: I'm using the word "crazy" in the most positive sense. I mean crazy as wonderful, singular, and perfect combined with unpredictable, nonconforming, and excellent.
Spontaneous. Fun-loving. Energetic.
Crazy.
But not a lunatic.
Okay.
Got that straight?
My sister, InlandEmpireGirl is the consummate crazy aunt for Silver Valley Girl's three daughters.
I might not have the history of this exactly right. I mean maybe it only happened once.
But my sister was such a great crazy aunt it seems to me like it happened all the time.
Here's what I think I know: Silver Valley Girl's daughters got to stay for several days with their crazy aunt and when they did, it was non-stop laughter.
They played board games. They played card games. They ate fun food. They make smores. They watched fun movies. They went on outings in the area. The didn't go to movies because Crazy Aunt InlandEmpireGirl doesn't live very close to a movie theater. But they watched movies in the house.
I can't keep straight the fragments of stories I've heard about these times together.
All I know is that when our whole family gets together, the nieces have inside jokes with my sister. They can say like two special words and erupt in laughter. Some crazy thing they did is embodied in those two words.
I don't resent at all the fact that neither of my aunts could be a crazy aunt. There were tons of good reasons why Aunt Lila and I or Aunt Ruth and I didn't go to A & W together or didn't stay up late playing Spoons.
I'm ecstatic, though, that my nieces have had this experience with my sister. And, to be honest, their experience with their aunt just added craziness to craziness.
Silver Valley Girl is not an oppressively strict mother.
She's kind of crazy, too!
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