Team Rick Whit

Check list for visiting/babysitting my niece

    When your niece is as adorable as mine - just pretend for this part because there is no way yours could be - you always need to be prepared when you see her.  Since Emma Joan was 2 months old, she has known that her cuteness melts old Uncie Matt from a mile away, and she has bossed me around as such ever since.  Unfortunately, it has been a little while since I’ve have had some good quality time with my little Emma bean.  So I am bringing her a little more than usual.

Toy Airplane? Check. - Emma loves to play outside, which is great because I don’t care much for playing inside since all she does is just order me to stand up and sit down in various spots around the room while she plays.  Its pretty annoying, and she makes me move every 30 seconds… Anyway, what I am trying to get at is I love to play with her outside, and she has recently become obsessed with pointing and yelling at the airplanes she sees fly by in the sky.  What does Uncie Matt do when he hears this news?  He buys her a toy plane of course.(FYI: Toy planes are fucking sweet these days.  The RC stuff I dreamt about as a kid is so cheap now!  Remote controlled airplanes and helicopters are like 20 bucks.  I honestly almost bought one for myself.  And the weird thing is, those were the exact type of toys I wasn’t looking for. But somehow I was drawn to them.  I mean there I was, a 23 year old man rationalizing the purchase of a child’s remote control airplane for my 22 month old niece.  I almost talked myself into it… I can be very convincing.)

Badass Bubble Maker? Check - Emmy is currently obsessed with bubbles.  In fact you cant say the word around her, with out producing some bubbles immediately, or she will fly off the handle.  So I bought her the biggest bubble gun I could find.  Since her favorite thing is to try and catch the bubbles, I figured I would make it easier for her and buy the one that makes bubbles the size of her head… Its loud as hell though.  My sister isn’t going to be pleased.

Kite? Check - This one is a secret present, because I know my sister will really be upset about me giving her this one.  I figure since Emma loves stuff that flies like a plane, and floats like a bubble, why not get the best of both worlds and get her a Disney kite.  Why will my sister hate this present you ask?  Simple, she runs like an injured bird and sucks at getting kites in the air.  Something Emma is going to ask her to do a lot once I show her how cool they are.

101 Dalmatians? Check - This is actually from a couple months ago.  I saw that Disney was, “taking it out of the vault” and went and picked it up for her since her two favorite things in life are dogs and Disney movies.  I just haven’t gotten around to giving it too her yet.

Bringing Yats for lunch? Check - Since it is my favorite restaurant its also a gift for me, but this is the first and only place I have ever taken Emma to eat.  Ok, well, we did go to Five Guys Burgers and Fries once and she at her hot dog like it was her last meal.  But that’s the only time we strayed from Yats.  I lucked out.  My baby niece loves to eat Cajun food with me. How badass is that?  

     All in all I’d say Emma and I have a pretty kick ass day ahead of ourselves….  Oh and tomorrow 20 of my rowdiest, best friends and I are heading up to Chicago for quite possibly the greatest assemblage of binge drinkers, joke tellers, and hook up artists a bachelor party has ever seen. So Friday and Saturday should be pretty kick ass too.  But for entirely different reasons.

8am