Stevie B., Stevie Y., now Stevie H.

I never had a chance to go home during the former half of decade of 2000-2010. There were huge changes going on in my family at that time; my nieces and nephew were growing up, my grandparents passed away, and the circle of life continued with the coming of my newest and youngest nephew, Stevie. Granted, Stevie was born in 1999, but close enough.

I've always wondered why the name Stevie. Personally, I think it was a name Goh came up with. Coincidentally, or maybe not coincidentally, the Wings won the Stanley Cup in 1997 and in 1998, with Steve Yzerman being a major contributor, and the Conn Smyth winner in the Wings' 97-98 season. At that time, they started calling him Stevie Y. Not to be confused with Stevie B. Our own would now be Stevie H.

But I digress. During the summer of 2001 or so, I finally met Stevie. He had never seen me before, maybe except for pictures. Not surprisingly, he mistook me for Goh; Goh was the only male member of our family who could actually hold Stevie without him crying and thrashing about to get away. And so it was, the Ol' Switcharoo come to life, again. This time, preying on the new generation. It was funny looking at Stevie's expression. When he looked at me, he didn't start crying right away as he did with all other strangers; of course not, he thought I was Goh, his dad. But just watching his expression, I could tell he knew something wasn't right. Perhaps I seemed familiar in an odd sort of way. Whatever it was that was throwing him off, he couldn't place it and so he was uncertain whether he should start crying or not. He opted not to.

After a while, Stevie and I were buddies. That is until Goh walked in the door. Then it was over; my cover was blown and Stevie started crying. But it's okay because we ended up becoming good buddies, anyway.

The next year, I actually made it home, again during the summer. It was bloody hot that day, and I was down visiting Goh and his family. Knowing that Stevie was never let out of the house until maybe age 2, I took him outside in to the backyard to play. It was then when he discovered how fun it was to have a water-gun fight. And it was fair: Stevie had the super-soaker water gun, I had the water-hose. Needless to say, he got drenched but not because his uncle was giving him a shower with the water hose outside. It was because he had so much fun being outside with the water, he was rolling around on the ground on the wet concrete. I think he got sick and caught a cold a few days later, but Stevie's joy of being outside playing, even for an hour far out-weighed any cold. In the end, it was all worth it. His cold came and it went, but the memories will last a lifetime.

When all is Quiet...

It was the summer of '91. I was only 18 years-old and I had been babysitting for my sister everyday during the summer from sun-up to about 5pm when a saviour would finally come home from work and take over. But until then, he was all mine.

Conventiently (for everyone else) his crib was kept in my bedroom. I quickly became accustomed to the routine: intially wake up at 6:30am when I heard my nephew babbling, feign sleeping until 7am when he started crying, get up, put the bottle in the microwave for 15 seconds, give it to Bryan, change his diapers while he was drinking milk, put him back in the crib, and go back to sleep until 7:30am, then get up when Bryan tossed the bottle out of the crib and started crying, and make sure Mom or Dad or someone else was awake to keep an eye on him, then dive back in to bed until 8-9am until Mom or Dad went to work. Then I had to keep him entertained, fed, well-rested, and safe until about 2pm when it was time for nap.

It was during one of these nap-times when I thought everything was going as usual. I had put Bryan to bed and went to the living room for about 20 minutes or so. All was quiet. As I was recuperating in the living room, I heard an odd rustling sound that I couldn't place. The sound was faint enough to make me think it was just my imagination, or perhaps soft enough to go unnoticed with my fatigue. Either way, I didn't follow up, but since I was up and out of the chair, I might as well check up on the little sack of potatoes.

There was a hole in my bedroom door that I could peer through to check up on him without opening the door and waking him up, which I used from time to time. And as I looked in to the room I saw Bryan, not sleeping soundly in bed, which he should have been. Instead, I saw him standing on the bed, reaching up, desperately trying to push my Stanley Cup poster back on to the wall. As he did this, the poster was making a faint rustling sound. Apparently, someone had been a bit mischevious.

Seeing this desicration of one of the Holiest of symbols, I opened the door. Bryan, upon seeing me said to me in Chinese,

"Uncle! Help me!" The funny part (for me) was hearing this 2 year-old plead for help for something as inconsequential as a 3 dollar poster. Okay, granted it was of the Stanley Cup, but still only a poster, nonetheless. I'll never forget the terror in his voice; it was as if it was a life-or-death situation and that the discovery of his mischievious behaviour would end in an ultimately painful demise.

Had Mom discovered him first, it may have. But it was me, the Yummy-fu.

I let out an exasperated "Ai-yaaaah!". Upon hearing this, Bryan burst in to tears as if pleading and groveling with the gods to spare his life. But it was no big deal; I put the poster back on the wall, gave my nephew a hug, told him to be a good boy next time and put him back to bed.

I learned something valuable that day: when 2 years old are quiet, they're either sleeping, badly hurt or sick, or up to no good.