WATER WARS AND OTHER SHENANIGANS

I am on a nonstop quest to stuff as many madcap adventures into this summer as I possibly can.  This sentiment twists my recent visit to Vermont and New York to see my brother's family and to connect with my newest cousin and his family.  (Yes, DNA connectivity has finally sorted out a lifetime of wondering why I have no cousins -- turns out that I do.)

My visit includes not one but two days of being with my cousin Peter, and I am able to meet his daughter and her family, which means that I spend some extended time with pre-teens (Peter's grandchildren) outside of school  ... and I don't shrivel up nor melt like the Wicked Witch of the West!  I will have to be sure to tell this to my coworkers and former students, although I doubt any of them will believe it.

The time I spend with family and visiting different sides of Lake Champlain and kayaking and swimming and riding the ferries and sightseeing and eating and sipping wine ... This is all wonderful, fabulous, outstanding!  However, my brother and his wife make a huge error in judgment, a fickle move, a decision so ridiculous that it's almost like my brother didn't grow up with me and has forgotten what a bonehead I am.

He leaves me in charge of his children.

To be completely fair and honest, his children do not need supervision whatsoever.  They are an almost-teen and a teenager, and they are intelligent, rational, polite young men.  But, I am, after all, a middle school teacher.  I believe that means that I also hold an honorary degree in Shenanigans.  My brother is also a middle school teacher, but he teaches eighth grade, a far more serious grade.  I used to teach eighth grade; I remember it well, the whole "prep the students for high school" spiel.  I've also taught sixth grade, which involved a lot of snot-wiping and reminders that farts are not weapons and should be used conservatively when in the classroom.

Seventh grade?  Well, that's an entirely different animal, and I am a masterful animal trainer.

My brother and his wife very innocently ask me if I would mind very much if they were to go to the nearby sporting goods store to check out kayaks.

Mind?!  Dude, I live for this kind of an opportunity.

My bro and his wife are barely out of the driveway, probably not even to the end of their short street, when I gather the boys from whatever video game or TV show might hold their interest.  Before you go accusing me of being insane, yes, I do know that self-engaged teenagers (like sleeping babies) should be left well-enough alone.

I also know that shenanigans don't just happen by themselves.

I set up a small inflatable pool that is filled with water, then add water pistols, bubbles, and water balloons.  I feel like Master Kan from the old television series, Kung Fu.  "When you can snatch the water weapons from my hands, it will be time for Water Wars."  The good news is that the boys are completely game to be party to my bad behavior and ill-honed supervisory skills.  The bad news is that they've already changed out of their swim wear and into their clean clothes.

What starts as organized play turns into all-out warfare, including large-scale water guns and the hose with its high-powered spray nozzle.  Within minutes, water balloons are being rapidly thrown from a huge plastic bowl (which also turns into a water weapon), guns are spewing, hose is spraying, pool is splashing, we are screaming with laughter, and the boys and I are soaked right down to my nephew's new sneakers.  (Ooops.)

This is true war.  We battle and skirmish several times over the next hour until the yard is saturated and most of the water has left the inflatable pool.  I figure that my brother and his wife should be home soon, so we madly pick up all of the busted balloons, and I instruct the boys to dry off, change clothes, and bring me everything wet that they're wearing, including skivvies.  I lay everything out of my car (it's a heat index of over 100, so my black car is like an oven), set the sneakers to drain and start drying out, and begin wiping down the kitchen (where we'd been filling water balloons earlier).

We almost make it.  We are about ten minutes from finishing everything and making it look as if nothing (except all the puddles) is amiss when the boys' parents walk in the door.  We are sooooo busted.  We are also sooooo happy.  (They're happy, too, because they bought two new kayaks at an amazing sale price.)

Later on my youngest nephew tells his mother that he has a sore bump on the side of his head that is producing a bit of a lump.  "I got hit with a water balloon," he laments.

"Yes, you did," I say, "but that's not what caused the lump.  Your brother hit you in the side of the head with a bowl full of water when you ran and slipped right into the pool and did a swam dive in all of your clothes."  Oh, yeah, he says, smiling.

I suppose this makes me a bit of a Cat in the Hat when it comes to my nanny skills.  I do have my limitations, though.  When we see my (new) cousins again at the end of my visit, I behave myself (for the most part).  It's a little early in our new-found relationship for me to be corrupting them, but I am reasonably certain that the next time we get together, there may be water balloons or something equally sinister.

I'm sure they'll understand.  We are family, after all.