Thankfulness Challenge - Day 5

There is nothing greater then seeing a little person come into the world, get to hold them, nurture them, play with them, love them, and then …..send them home. Don’t get me wrong I’m sure having kids is awesome and all but having nephews or in Golden’s case nieces is just … well it’s just fantastic. You get all the fun, all the love, all the joy, and sometimes all the secrets without having to then turn around and pay for their college. Plus if they start to get on your nerves you take them back to their parents, or if they want something and you don’t want to pay for it you say I have to ask your parents first then blame them on why you can’t get it and thus you are allowed to keep your best aunt ever status! By birth as an aunt you get to be part of their lives from day one, you watch the mom (AKA your sister or in mine and Golden’s case Sister-in-law) go through the pregnancy, from a far, you get to buy all the fun stuff you want (that your bank account allows anyway), and you get to babysit when ever you darn well want to. You get the joys of a kid without the swollen ankles; without the need to yarf every few seconds for a few months, and without all that pain as you bring the kid in the world. Nope you get to sit back with your feet up and wait for the love and admiration to come from those little eyes as they look up at you for the first time and think “who are you?!”

You get to take a part in molding their personality, in shaping their belief system , in teaching them the things important to you but if they throw a hissy fit in the store people are not looking at you they are looking at their parents, even on those occasions when you might have egged them on a little.

Yep being an aunt is awesome.

The best part is when your nephew/niece calls you to tell you about a movie they saw, or a book they read, or a musical artist they like and they want to share it with you because “you share so much with me.” That’s a great moment. When they reach that age when you aren’t telling them stuff you are listening as much as talking (sometimes you’d love to get a word in edge wise but even that’s ok sometimes), that first moment you realize “holy cow we just had an entire conversation.” Is a moment you want to dive into and live forever.

I’ve been lucky that my nephews have not been too far away I’m able to be there for important events for them, school functions, sporting events, or just to babysit. I can’t imagine not being part of their everyday world. My older nephew called (yes that’s right he CALLS ME OFTEN!) last week to discuss To Kill A Mockingbird, they were reading it in class, and while on the phone with him I was reminded of parts of the book I had forgotten. I got to take him to his first midnight movie (the final Harry Potter Movie—cause the rule was he had to read the books before he could see the movie (so they wouldn’t scare him) and that was the only one not released yet when he finished). I got to introduce him to the Harry Potter series, which he read all 7 books in the course of like 5 months and as he read them we’d discuss them at length. We’d talk about the challenges Harry was going through and exchange ideas on how it could have gone differently, what we liked what we didn’t like. IT.WAS.AWESOME!

My younger nephew has seen us have these conversations and will call and do the same now that he’s getting older. He’ll send me a book and ask me to read it so we can talk about it and of course I do. He sent me an e-mail a few months ago (he has yet to acquire a cell phone) about a Disney movie that was advertised that he wanted to go see. After looking it up I was all in. I often use them to go see movies so that I’m not the creepy alone person sitting in the back of the theater making the other parents nervous. Hey just cause I don’t have kids doesn’t mean I don’t wanna see the Smurfs too!

I know Golden shares the same view about her nieces but she does often wish their activities had later start dates, I’m with her on that. Getting up at 6 to get to a football game and sit on medal bleachers to freeze your tail off isn’t fun, tho it does go a long way in earning you the “best aunt ever title.” If you haven't read Golden's trip to the theater with her super smart older niece you simply must it's a perfect view of the kind of relationship a Aunt has with their niece/nephew --> Golden takes one for team

So on day 5 I’m thankful that God made Golden and I aunties allowing us to spoil our nieces/nephews, as is our God given right as “auntie.” Since Golden has nieces I get to live through her and buy them the My Little Pony’s or the Rainbow Brite (that’s right she’s coming back) characters and the girly things my boys just aren’t into. So for me it is truly a win-win situation!

-Marcy (@beaslma) – AKA Best Aunt Ever***

-golden (@theonlygolden) – AKA Best Aunt Ever**

**to two little girls

***What can I say I had the title first so Golden’s had to have an asterisk! :D

Golden takes one for the team...

I have no intentions of telling you my age, just know that I'm in the age group of “My Little Ponies”, “Rainbow Brite”, “Transformers”, and “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles”. I’m one of those weirdo’s that has done very little to grow up and I try my hardest to live in a world of magic as often as possible. Dark confession time.....I am a fangirl. No, no, now hold on. I know that immediately you start imagining psycho hose beast tween girls, but that ain't me. I'm just extremely passionate about my particular brand of Geekery.

I am currently at odds with the demon known to mankind as Michael Bay AKA childhood ruiner. I had all intentions of purchasing a movie ticket to see any other movie and then sneaking in to see the new Ninja Turtles flick, also known as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or TMNT for lazy marketing people. But then my 9-year-old niece called and said that she wanted me to take her to see it. I, being a fucking all-star Auntie, said yes immediately. I do all I can to encourage awesomeness in my nieces so they don’t become those psycho hose beast tween girls that you thought of earlier.

Before I purchased our tickets I explained what my intentions were; that yes we were going to see TMNT but I didn't want my money to go to Michael Bay, so I was going to buy passes to a different movie worthy of my hard earned $20 (not including snacks and drinks). She seemed confused. She wanted to know why I didn't just buy for what we were watching. So I clarified, by telling her that it was an abomination unworthy of my hard earned money; a bastardization of all that was right and true with my childhood and I couldn’t fully support it. That it was created by a man so purely evil that his unending appetite could only be fed on the money and the tears of children that never grew up. She admitted that he did seem bad, but why did it mean that I had to lie and be a bad person too? (Fucking hell, she gets her moral compass from her parents). So I tried quiet unsuccessfully to explain the workings of the universe and that sometimes there are small necessary evils in order to overcome the greater evils in this world. She wasn't budging and we were missing the trailers. So, I bought the fucking tickets.

For it to be opening weekend there were only us and 4 other small groups in the theater (faith in humanity restored somewhat by this). I was thankful for this because the 9-year-old and I talked through most of it. Since the nerd force runs deep between us, she noticed most of the problems without any help from me, cue Proud all-star auntie moment here. She rightfully asked why if Megan fox was too good to have orange hair couldn't she at least do it red…. why their faces looked like overgrown Shrek frogs…. why shredder was a robotic samurai that looked like her dads hedge clippers…. and why was their back story all wrong? All I could do was explain about the ancient evil Michael Bay. (I think she is starting to get it.) NOTICE A NINE YEAR OLD GIRL knew all this but a grown ass man Michael Bay couldn’t be bothered.

Taken from TMNT Twitter Acct to prove a point

I didn't like how it really downplayed Splinters history by ripping away his past and making him a rat that learned to read a random ninjutsu book in the sewer, as rats do, and gave April O'Neil the position of savior. Shredder was just a complete hot mess; his costume is all over the place, and he spends the majority of the movie by refusing to speak any English until he puts on his Edward Scissorhands outfit then randomly speaks nothing else. Not to mention it's very distracting that they use the same sound effects for Shredder as they do for the Transformers.

Of course Michelangelo got the most laughs. But at one point he farted and even the 9-year-old looked at me and said "Well that was extremely unnecessary." And I agree. She also made the valid point that it didn't make sense to have them fighting in so much snow. Being reptiles, they would be sluggish and wouldn't do good in such cold temperatures, that it wasn't realistic (Because 6-feet tall mutated turtles that fight crime with sweet Ninja moves is.)

I guess to sum up, it was a typical Michael Bay production filled with cheap jokes, cheesy heroic lines, and over the top explosions. If you have no prior knowledge of the many incarnations of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles you will be fine. Admittedly it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but it still wasn't as good as my heart had hoped it would be. Plus they didn't even try to slip in a Vanilla Ice cameo. So shameful.