Uncle Jason

My sister Stephanie and brother-in-law John are due to give birth to her first child about a month from tomorrow, which would make me, for the first time in my life, an uncle.  It hadn't really hit me until today, the day before Steph's baby shower, how close it is, and how cool it's going to be.

I can't wait to meet Baby Bird (that's what Steph and John are calling her because they don't know the sex) for the first time.  Meet her for real.  I met her once in a dream I had a few months ago, but in the dream she was a seven year old African American girl named Latifah.  I hold this up as an example of the uncanny predictive powers of dreams.

Kate's nephews also call me Uncle Jason, but this will be the first time a blood relative will be able to use that name.  And I've been thinking about what kind of uncle I'll be.  Off the bat, I know I'll be the uncle that makes coins vanish, and then miraculously reappear from Baby Bird's ears.  Over and over again.  I remember my Uncle Gary that way, and I've always wanted to play that role.  And I'm sure later in life I'll be the uncle that cracks goofy jokes all the time.  Jokes that he thinks are funny but are completely lost on Baby Bird...mainly because they aren't actually funny.

Ultimately I hope I can be the kind of uncle that, once Latifah has grown up and become her own person, she'll remember, think is still cool even though he's a crotchety old man, and have fond memories of.  Gad, I'm talking as if I'll be dead...

What I want it to be cool, funny uncle Jason.  The uncle that Latifah would want to be when she grows up if it weren't biologically impossible for to do so.