An idiot's guide to being an uncle

An idiot's guide to being an uncle

"Joh-dai!" Noah exclaims, when I ask him what he wants to be when he grows up. He means 'jedi,' as in Star Wars, lightsaber-wielding defenders of the Force.

It’s disgustingly cute, watching a two-year-old dance around in his car seat, morphing his index finger and thumb into a gun and making shooting noises.

"BSH!" he yells. "BSH! BSH!"

His impressions are remarkably accurate. His arms recoil when he makes firing sounds. How does he know this? Though he doesn't seem to know that jedi knights don't use guns. Uncivilized, and all.

My sister-in-law turns her head around from the passenger seat. “Aiya, Noah, no more guns okay?”

I figure I probably shouldn’t indulge Noah’s gun slinging fantasies. I also want to stay on his mom’s good side. So I try a more defensive tactic. "Shield!" I yell, sticking my hand in front of my face. This blocks his gun shots, at least in my mind. Who knows what this means to Noah. He must get it on some level, because he becomes eerily quiet, until I peek around the side of my hand, just a tad.

"BSH!"

"Shield!"

This goes on for at least ten minutes, I wonder how my brother and his wife do this on a regular basis. Creativity, or maybe just wacky ideas, are at a premium here.

"I wish he weren't so into guns," she says. “I wonder how he got into them, it’s not like we showed him or anything.”

"It'll wear off," I say, thinking back to my fascination with guns. The raw feeling of power. The mentality of the Wild West. And then I learned that you could actually kill people. And that when you do, they don’t come back.

I imagine if I can somehow impart this wisdom into a two-year-old’s mind, or morph his idea of what a jedi actually does. So my mind goes into “this might be crazy but let’s connect random dots” mode. Noah likes jedi. He thinks they use guns. I wonder…

"Hey Noah," I turn my head, a smiling creasing on my lips. "Do you know what jedi actually do?"

He gives me a blank stare.

"They drink tea."

Truth be told, I've got nothing. But years of improv class have taught me: fake it 'till you make it.

“It’s true, they do.” I chuckle. “Here, I’ll show you.”

I stick out my fist, as if it were holding a tea cup. He mimics me. I use my other hand and pour some tea onto our fists. He seems to be watching intently. I think my bad tea pouring sound effects are helping.

“Cheers!” I say, and bump my fist against his, before bringing it to my lips and making a fat slurping sound. Then, relying on my time of living in Hong Kong, I pull out what remains of my then British accent. "It’s quite nice."

I hold my breath, waiting to see his response. For sure he'll have no accent, but he’s followed me this far. He locks eyes with me, and in his soft, cheery voice, goes:

"Nice."

I have never felt my heart melt, but if this is it, damn does it feel good.

800 miles of distance makes it difficult to keep in touch. For a long time, Noah couldn't remember who I was. When I would go visit, he’d run and hide behind his mom's leg. Before he could stand and when his parents were carrying him, he’d bury his head into their shoulder.

“Hey Noah, do you remember me?” I’d ask, overly cheerfully. He’d pop his head up, stare at me for a second, and dunk his head back into his parent’s shoulder.

Day two would be the same. So would day three.

But by day four, Noah eventually learned that I must be someone he can trust if he sees me every day.

“Noah, what’s my name?”

"D-Da."

I looked up at his dad.

"He's probably trying to say your name."

I settled, choosing instead to run around and play random games with him. Chasing him around hallways. Performing fake magic tricks. Letting him chop off my body’s appendages, and then regrow them for him to chop off again.

“Noah, it’s time to go,” his parents would eventually say. “You need to say bye to Uncle Dan, he’s going back to Seattle.”

He’d look at me. “Nooo,” he whined. Babies are smarter than you think.

I smiled, thinking I’d finally broken the barrier of short-term memory. Only to go visit a few months later and start the process all over again.

“Hey Noah—”

Head into the shoulders.

It was an exercise in repetition. Or perhaps, preparation for dealing with my own parents and their eventual memory loss.

It became second nature to book trips for at least four days so that Noah could reacquaint himself to this mischievous, relatively giant person he's supposed to call Uncle Dan.

Eventually my brother and I figured out we might be able to use technology to our advantage here too. He started showing Noah pictures of me. Videos of the two of us playing together. We pulled out new internet technologies like Skype or FaceTime.

“Hey Noah look! It’s Uncle Dan!” my brother said through the phone.

“Hi Noah.” I smile and wave, wondering what he’d do.

“Hi.” He half smiles, half smirks in his own little shy way.

I can barely understand him. In fact, I feel silly talking into a phone. It’s weird, though weirdly cool that I can have a window into what sometimes feels like a world so far away.

Sometimes it’s really just me and my brother talking. But I get it; Noah needs to see my face. Hear my voice. You make it a point to stay in touch with the lives of people you want to know. Technology, in fact, makes this easier. You just have to know how to use it for that.

It’s paid off. Only a month or so ago, I dropped by to visit my brother’s house again.

“Uncle Dan! We're so excited to see you, right Noah?” my sister-in-law exclaimed as she lifted Noah from a car seat and into her arms. He turned to look at the weird guy standing on the sidewalk.

I looked straight into his eyes. "Hey Noah, what's my name?"

He paused for a moment.

"On-go Dahn."

Not bad.

I'll never forget the day Noah was born. He was this tiny ball of cute, cuddly and awe all mixed into one. I couldn't help but immediately imagine his future, how he'd grow, and the hopes and dreams of his parents.

Which was also weird, thinking about his parents. His dad, was my brother. To this day, I'm not quite sure that fact has totally sunk in.

He has my brother’s hair. Which means he has a lot of it. He also has my sister-in-law's eyes. They're thin, and lift up towards the sides the farther away they get from his nose. He's a weird combination of the two of them, an amazing reflection of their combined joy.

But I've quickly learned, Noah is also a test of personal character, even for me, the one who isn’t a part of his life day in and day out.

One time my brother had picked me up from the airport, and we picked up some burgers and fries before hitting the highway to visit our folks. Since my brother was driving, I offered to feed Noah, deciding that he could have one french fry for every bite of the burger he ate. He didn't like that. I should've known.

“Noah, you need to eat the tomato,” I said, rather coldly, holding on to a flimsy slice of bright red tomato. He didn't seem to have the finer tastes of In-N-Out. At least not yet.

He giggled and smiled, but only nibbled at the sides.

“You barely ate it at all,” I frowned. "No more fries until you finish."

He doesn't listen and points at the fries. This is one of the few times I've actually been frustrated with the little guy.

"No." I say, and pick up my own burger and take a deep bite into it.

Eventually, he starts whining and kicking his legs against the car seat.

"You have one bite, then you can have two fries, how about that?"

He nods.

Patience is understated. A requirement for everyone who wants to be a parent. Until I remember that I’m sure I was also this much of a pain when I was a kid, if not more.

Even more than 20 years later, I'm the one grumbling, sitting on the floor and struggling to keep up as I play silly game with Noah where we hammer at plastic ice cubes, trying to prevent a toy figurine from falling into the cold waters below.

"Uuuuuugggggghhhhhhh," I groan, letting the tail end of my voice drone on. I'm just about to stop, until Noah jumps in.

"Uuuuuuuuhhhhhhaaaahhhh." It's a similar sound to me, except in higher pitch and a thousand times more musical.

For fun, I keep going and raise my pitch. He follows. It's turning into a groaning and singing party.

“Ahhhhhuuuuhhhhhahhhhh," the two of us go, raising and lowering our pitch to try to match each other.

He leans over and presses his cheek against mine. His skin is so soft. It’s like cotton, soaked in fabric softeners gifted from unicorns. Velvety to the touch.

"Uuhhhhhhhhooooooohhhhhhhhaaahhhhhh."

“What are you guys singing?!” my sister-in-law laughs from the kitchen. I'm glad someone thinks it sounds like singing.

I eventually run out of breath and drop to the ground. I just flew into town in the wee hours of the morning and haven’t had a moment’s rest since. My face falls to the carpet and my eyelids begin to shut.

“Op-poo.”

I know Noah is standing over my head because I can see his tiny feet. The best I can do is tilt my head, just so his eyes are in view and so he can see my blank stare. “Op-poo.” He flips his hand, palm facing up, and raises it gently. “Op-poo?”

“Ooohhh,” I smile. “Say please?”

“Pluhz.”

After two years, I think I finally understand baby talk, get back on my knees and let him press his face back against my cheek.

“Ahhhhhhuuuuuhhhhahhhuuuuhhhhhh.”

I can’t remember why I was frustrated. This is just too much fun.