s'mores

i should have seen it coming. the original supernatural nephew did, of course, because he is, well, supernatural. he has spent the last seven years in the middle of a huge pile of adoration. the only grandchild to one grandparent set, the only nephew to two sets of aunts and uncles. and then there's the supernatural part. that adds on a bit. so life has been all gravy until this year. when the new supernatural nephew made his debut the original didn't fret. the new child had nearly strangled himself in utero. he was born looking like a spider monkey or some sort of aquatic alien. he slept most of the time. and who knew whether he had any powers or not. so the original just sat back and watched.

he was a doting big cousin. he knew had much to teach the new creature who mostly squirmed and squeaked. the adults certainly weren't supernatural so he knew he'd end up doing it all. he could mold the baby into his own sidekick. the new child adored him. but as the holidays approached he could feel it in the air. the baby's first christmas. he did not remember his own first chrismas and couldn't see what all he fuss was about, but still. christmas would be at the baby's house. fine. the new york aunt and uncle would be staying at the baby's house. fine. they could stay there a few days and... nope. all the days. all the days? whatever. it would be fine. it would be christmas.

christmas came and went and he was good. as far as he could tell, nobody knew this, of course, because they were all drooling over that baby. saying words that weren't real words. he knew real words, big words other kids his age had never met. and he used them for real, the way they were meant to be used. he was starting to get a sense of the baby's powers. the adults made faces at the new kid. the kind of faces he got in trouble for making on certain occasions. people actually picked up the child, sniffed his butt- yes, they really did- and were all sorts of joyous when the child pooped in his pants. the original supernatural pooped in a toilet like normal people. only animals and babies don't use toilets. gross.

but the original supernatural had a plan. he'd won a half pound chocolate bar at school nearly a year ago and had been saving it. he intended to have something to contribute. an event. he planned for an evening of telescope assisted stargazing at his house capped off by roasting s'mores over a campfire in his yard. all this was to take place with the brooklyn aunt and uncle the night after christmas. this, of course, means that he night after christmas started out as a tornado watch early in the morning and stayed blustery and cloudy right up until night, when it was painfully evident the stars and any nearby planets had abandoned the horrible night sky for something better. it was too windy for a bonfire. his aunt and uncle, not used to quite so many events in one day, were exhausted and figured the weather would encourage him to postpone. he was undaunted. he had a half pound chocolate bar.

so we got in the car, the uncle and i, bearing christmas peeps for the s'mores. he had graham crackers, marshmallows. he had the chocolate bar. he had a gas grill, metal skewers. he wanted to know what to do. so we set to work. he broke up the graham crackers into squares while i broke the chocolate. he put the chocolate squares on the graham crackers while i skewered a few peeps. we headed to the grill. we put the chocolate capped grahams on the top rack for slow and even chocolate melting. we each took a skewer and held our peeps to the flames. it felt the way andy and opie look when they're walking to the fishing hole. he wanted very much to use his own marshmallows for some of the s'mores and brought out the bag. mini marhsmallows, barely bigger than the skewers. but we speared the tiny things and they roasted up perfectly. pearls of flame.

we sat around the big dining room table- his dad, his mom who is also my sister, the original supernatural nephew himself, the sweetie and me. we ate s'mores and drank milk and talked about nothing in particular. if i've had better s'mores, i can't remember the time.