The British Nephew and His Hollow Legs

My Welsh nephew likes to pop over to our house when things get too quiet at MIL's and FIL's. Over here, there are plenty of people with whom to play UNO or shoot the breeze. He doesn't care that the house is

always in a state of untidiness (varying in range from only slightly messy to humiliating given the day or the hour, and whether or not I have yelled at people to get their chores done and whether or not they have taken any action to do so).

He calls me "Auntie Eva," which is amusing. No one has ever called me "auntie" before. I feel like pulling out the tea things and offering him a little cucumber sandwich or two.


He'd probably enjoy cucumber sandwiches better than what I'm usually offering him, however. He's kind of picky about what he eats, which is funny because the kid is always ready to stuff another meal into his calorie-burning frame. As a talented and dedicated soccer player (excuse me, football player), he probably doesn't have an ounce of fat on him. His two hollow legs are never filled. He got so hungry one day that he tried my chili, though he was dubious because he thought it would be spicy (it wasn't spicy) and because he doesn't like beans (I only had one can of black beans in the cupboard, so he got lucky because the bean ratio was pretty low). He actually liked the chili and had an entire bowl of it before he went back to Nanna's and Grampy's house for dinner (he politely refused the corn bread). He thinks American pancakes are disgusting--even the ones with fresh blueberries--but he has taken to American fast food with glee, so maybe he will manage to put on ten pounds, which was his original goal.

As MIL is British, she understands completely what he is used to eating, and she spends all of her free time trying to cook enough to satisfy his stomach. Just kidding. She only spends half the day trying to do that.

The other half of MIL's day is spent training her new dog. Since Sam's passing on our vacation, MIL has been on the lookout for a new big dog, preferably with labrador blood and a deep bark. Ever handy with a smart phone and search parameters, Husband quickly located a likely dog in a pet shelter in another city. MIL, FIL, and Husband made the trip to the city and came back with a completely different dog than the one in the photograph, but a dog that promises good things. MIL has named her Bonnie. I'll keep you posted.

And that's the news from these parts. I started this post three times before I started writing about Nephew, and I'm certain that my nephew is vastly more interesting than what I had originally written. You're welcome.