The Gay Uncle had a chance to visit with his LA-based friends Kate and Dylan over the holiday season, and to see their charming little buggers Max (6) and Athena (3). The kids had spent the entire day out with their old babysitter Eleini–a campaign funded by the parents to give the adults some alone time–and when they returned to the apartment that evening, they were tired, wound up, and excited. The girl was thrilled that the sitter had given her a share of the per-diem her parents had provided for the day’s festivities, stuffing about ten bucks into her chihuahua-shaped purse. “I got some dollars!” she exclaimed. This reminded the G.U. of the story of this girl’s first word. Frequently mistaken by casual listeners, who would coo and smile, She’s saying Mommy Athena’s initial utterance was less familial and more…financial. Actually, Kate would correct them, She’s saying MONEY.
But more intriguing was the boy’s response to the day. “We took three trains!” he told the gathered adults.
“Great. Wow.” the grownups calmly stated, already into their second Ketel on the rocks.
“The M train, the A train, and the 6 train,” he said, even more enlivened.
“Three trains in one day,” Gunc said. “Incredible. Can you please pass the olives?”
The boy retreated to his room to remove his winter clothes, getting tangled in his thermal shirt in the process, but when he returned, he was still stuck on this subject. “I was telling you about the trains for a reason. Because we took the M train, which is for my name, the A train, which is for my name, and the 6 train, and I’m six.”
The Gay Uncle smiled, shamed, impressed, and reminded once again that it is only in actually listening to kids, that one can truly understand their intent. Sometimes what they have to say is more interesting than one’s drink.
Because it’s pouring down snow in upstate New York, because his mother-in-law just returned from the Galapagos, and because he is already dressed in his tuxedo for the black tie New Years festivities he attends every year at the fanciest local (rural) nightclubs, the Gay Uncle is naturally thinking of…penguins. Well, also because he recently received the following note from his pal Romi Lassally, genius mom and creator/editor of the amazing site 
The Gay Uncle spent five nights with his in-laws last week. (Yes, F-I-V-E. Send medals.) He enjoyed about three and a half nights of quality time during this period, some of it with his three nieces. But five nights means five movies. These screenings bring the family together, allow the G.U. to drink his in-laws’ good liquor for free, and keep him out of the scary bars in his b.f.’s small Southern hometown. Screening films also provides a modicum of peace in the house each evening; without them the girls tend to spiral out into whimpering and whining, depriving the adults of any…adult time. Since it’s the only reliable way to control for the “taste” of others (his father-in-law’s Netflix selections literally consisted of: Oceans 11-13, and Wild Hogs) he and his boyfriend placed themselves in charge of the video store runs. Now that the girls are approaching the double digits, and aspiring toward even higher ages, the Guncles felt it was time to begin sharing some of their favorite teen movies. They were careful to pick films that had only the most chaste sexual content, and absolutely no violence, gore, or killing. But there was plenty of what his mother-in-law calls “cussing”. This didn’t bother Gunc in the least. He doesn’t have a problem with kids hearing swearing, or even swearing themselves so long as they do it properly, and without being injurious to others. But his sister-in-law Lizzie and infamous brother-in-law Marty seemed to take greater issue, so much so that Marty began personally censoring even mild curses like “ass” and “bitch” by screaming “BEEP” or distractingly reaching over and attempting to cover his girls’ ears, tactics that were at once annoying and ineffectual. The G.U. felt that his own method of setting standards and just letting the kids deal was much more successful, a fact that was proven out when the movie ended. “That was funny,” Lizzie said to the girls. “But what did you think of all that cursing?” Brookie, Marty’s oldest daughter, shrugged. “We hear it all the time from Mommy. We hear it all the time from Daddy. We hear it all the time from movies. We just know not to say any of it.” Chalk up another one for the G.U.’s patented method of empowering kids with the tools to analyze and understand the world, instead of trying (impossibly, unsuccessfully) to insulate them from it. 
Here’s a new idea whose time has come: Sanctimonious Holiday Cards. The Gay Uncle recently received a “holiday greeting” from someone he knows in Berkeley, CA the other day. It was just like all the other cards he receives in the mail every year–containing blank-faced photos of his friends standing in some highlight-of-the-year location/vacation, smiling falsely, with their brood–save two minor points: 
The Gay Uncle was recently complaining to a colleague about how the holidays run at his in-laws house. He has three nieces on his boyfriend’s side, and in years past, the Christmas morning present-opening routine has been marked not by cheer, warmth, and love, but rather by infighting (“I like the green skirt! Why did she get the green skirt?”), ingratitude (“Is that all the presents?”), interjection (“Waaaaaah!!!), and–immediately upon the cessation of wrapping-ripping–inciting inflamation (“I’m bored.) So Gunc told his co-worker that, this year, he’s boycotting all present giving. Instead, he said, he’s making extra donations to charity in his nieces’ honor (Habitat for Humanity, a Food Bank, Planned Parenthood). “It’s no Wii,” he said, “but I feel much better about it.”
While he was down in the Keys with his family last week, The Gay Uncle was invited to read aloud to his nieces’ 4/5th grade class. There are about 30 kids in this Montessori group, and it is run by a hardcore practitioner, so when he arrived, instead of the usual happy teacher chatter he usually aims for in these situations, he was instructed to sit in a hard chair and simply “observe the children”. He tried his best to be unobtrusive, though it went against every fiber of his being. This was especially difficult since a) all three of his nieces (Amber, Lucia, and Faye) are in the class; b) he’s spent his entire professional career talking to kids; and c) he’d been out drinking until the wee hours the night before and had consumed about nine glasses of water that morning in an attempt to fight off a hangover. 
The Gay Uncle recently received a report on his six year old “nephew” Max. Apparently, a girl in Max’s class was behaving strangely toward him: hiding his windbreaker, grabbing the ball away from him on the playground, offering to be his math partner and then saying “psych”. The girl’s older brother–who is also in their class–wondered what was going on, so he asked his sister point-blank after school one day: “Truth: Are you in love with Max?” The girl reddened, and nodded. “Yes.”
You may recall that the Gay Uncle’s new niece, Cakes, is extremely precocious for a 10 month old baby. She walks, she eats mushrooms and spinach (and just about anything else you put in front of her). She laughs at the G.U.’s jokes. And she was reported to be able to say the word “Uncle”. Well, while Gunc was visiting her–and his mother, his sister Roxy, her b.f. Nick, and their other kids Amber, Lucia, and Faye–in the Keys this past week, he did his best to try to get the girl to utter the magic word…to no avail. “Uncle,” he said, over and over, leaning in toward her. “Uncle. Un-cle. Un-cle,” he said, smiling and pointing at himself. “At least say, Brett, you little doughball. The hard consonants are somewhat easier.” This went on for three entire days without end (or success). Then, on his last night in town (as with every other night) he was scheduled to go out for drinks with Roxy, and Cakes was all buckled into her car seat in back when designated-driver Nick pulled up to nab him. As you know, the Gay Uncle loves a captive audience, so he immediately started in on the Say Uncle bit again. The girl simply gurgled and smirked. She even said “Mama” once or twice, pointing at his sister. But then, just as they were pulling up to the bar, she cocked her head, pointed right at him, and–clear as a bell–said…“Gay!” No joke. Gunc didn’t even sigh. He just shrugged and accepted it. He is a professional Gay Uncle after all. Witness the note his older niece Amber wrote on the family calendar (in the image above) for the date he was to arrive in town. If you can’t read her scrawl, it says: “The Gay Uncle Comes In”
In case you missed any of the press the Gay Uncle garnered this week, here’s a quick re-cap: