My brother-in-law, Keith, has been an uncle for half his life. He's a "straggler" of sorts in his family--big gap between him and next nearest sib. So he's had neices and nephews since he was in high school (maybe even before that.) Keith has used his experiences to become a great uncle and this past week I got to watch his uncle-skills in action.
Keith asked me on Thursday if he could take my son climbing at a local sports store--just him and Tyce. Cool! I never had an uncle take me on a date before. "Sure, that would be great!"
He grabbed Tyce and our new little digital video camera and they headed out the door.
When they came back a couple hours later they had made memories and captured them. We popped the video on the TV and all watched as Tyce waited put on his climbing shoes, as he anticipated the climb, as he climbed and came down, while he played air hockey and then while he had a priceless conversation with Keith at Wendy's over frosties! (Tyce left the room a few times out of embarassment--seems he had forgotten the camera was there.)
This is one of those pieces of video that I'll never get tired of watching. I watched me son have fun and be cared for by his uncle, I learned new things from my son that Keith drew out in simple conversation--he's great at that and I got two great ideas for dates with my kids coming back to Chicago (climbing and video cameras.)
Keith, thanks.
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