For any of you who do not know, HT (or Heir to the Throne) is my four year old nephew. He is the son of my little sister, Princess & her husband Axl. He is an only child living withing shouting distance of his grandparents, who have no other grandkids near by. He is a fount of knowledge and is more dramatic than his Aunt FarmWife was at that age (and that's really saying something).
When he was little he called me "Haunch." It was his own strange mash-up of Aunt & my real first name but truly sounded like neither. All the grandkids call QM "Grammy." When H.T. says it, it comes out "Dammy"....which is actually a step up from what he used to call her. It used to just be "Dam." It got even better when he'd smash Mom and Grammy together because he called his mom "Bum"....I'll let you figure out the rest. It made for some interesting trips to the grocery for my mother.
QM & Daddy have taken to calling him U-man because of the posture he assumes when he gets upset or disappointed or anything other than thrilled. He folds himself nearly in half & stomps around the house looking oddly like the letter U. If you call him U-Man (or anything else not actually his name) he will quickly inform you that, "My name Heir to the Throne Finklestien to work at __________, Tennessee." That part about where he works is very important.
Things are never boring with HT around.
Today at lunch he had a place map with a map of the USA printed on it. He continually pointed to any yellow state & told me that was where he lived. I explained that just because Tennessee was yellow on that map, that didn't make every yellow state Tennessee. He thought I'd lost my mind.
My place mat had pictures of all the presidents on it. I showed him James K. Polk and he got very excited. President Polk lived in my hometown for a time and QM has told HT all about him. When he saw the picture he shouted, "Hey! Dat's James K. Polk! Him and me work at _________, TN!" Me, being the party pooper I am, said, "That's nice, babe, but James K. Polk is dead."
"NOOOOOOO, Aunt FarmWife! Don't say dat word to me. Don't say James K. Polk are dead a me!"
To which QM interjected, "HT, you and I have talked about this. James K. Polk lived in Tennessee one hundred years ago. He's been dead for a long time."
U-man hunched himself over & sighed the most heart wrenching sigh you've ever heard.
A few minutes later Daddy sat down at the table with us. I told HT to tell his Pa who the man in the picture was. "Pa, dat's James K. Polk. Him's my man and him really, actually died." QM prompted HT to tell what James K. Polk was and he told his Pa, "Him was da President of Ameg-uh-luh da United States."
Having him around has messed Bitsy up a great deal. She's not used to hearing other kids call me & Husband by our first names. She spent 15 minutes calling me "FarmWife" today at Bucka's house. She called her dad "Uncle FarmBoy" 5 or 6 times before calling him "Uncle Daddy."
She's also spent a great deal of time trying to keep HT in line. He had the nerve to try and open the gate on Busha & Bucka's fence yesterday. That left Bitsy no choice but to wrestle him to the ground and keep him there so he couldn't escape. And today we "played runnin' 'round in da yard" at Bucka's.
Life with HT is an adventure....even for us.
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