Where, Oh Where Did Our Fun Aunt Ann Go?

Have you seen Fun Aunt Ann? That isn’t her slumped over in the green plastic Adirondack lawn chair, buried in her smart phone, and drinking PBR from a CROCS beer cozy, is it?

Impossible.

No. The Fun Aunt Ann I know gave piggy back rides, led niece and nephew conga parades, and topped the VIP list of your children’s birthday parties as a guest/performer/village idiot.

Fun Aunt Ann would not only talk to your toddler on the phone, but she’d join you for Gymboree! No children of her own, no matter—she put those years of movement, vocal and tap dance training to good use, sashaying across the mats and giving the “hello” song a full belt. She’d babysit for free, shuffling your little one off to buffalo while singing Papa Can You Hear me and other Yentl power-ballads. She was a tiny team player–your favorite babysitter, your “Fun Aunt Ann”—one of the gang! Never mind the pit stains, boys and girls, nothing to see here.

Remember how she would pine over photos of your little ones, and then flip out her own cascade of cat snapshots from her wallet-folio? Only black and white candids of course—never gauche. She loved and played with creatures great and small—awake, alive, joyful!

Young Fun Aunt Ann (also her Mandarin name) spent every family gathering entertaining her cousins. The only thing she wanted more than to sit at the kids table, was a younger sibling/live Barbie-head of her own, with hair she could style, adoration she could hoard, and supporting roles she could cast.

As a camp counselor she never needed the “WHAT? I CAN’T HEAR YOU” cue to cheer louder. She always went above and beyond with her charges—acting out all the parts in their bedtime stories, Marco-ing to their Polos while blind and waterlogged, and choreographing Erasure lip synch routines for the Camp show Puttin’ On The Yidz. For the first five days of summer and/or until she found her summer boyfriend.

So where is she now? Why–when you just asked her to watch Little Maddy–did you find Little Maddy in the pantry eating raw polenta with a Tonka Truck? Why, when her son’s peers come around does she always play the Everyone Out Of The House game? Why does her expression at the bounce house say “Closed for Business” rather than BOO-YAH ? Where’s the song and dance? Where’s the joie de vivre? For God’s sake, where are the Heads Shoulders Knees and Toes seventy five times with your Madeleine doll?**

Well.

Fun Aunt Ann had her own kids.  She loves being a mom to two and exactly two children. Maybe someday—provided ample pasture to roam, sleep, and feed uninterrupted–Fun Aunt Ann will emerge as Fun Gran Ann.

But for now? Don’t disturb the Monkeys Mommy.

**Apologies to Madeleine who has no nose, and the last thing she needed was Fun Aunt Ann singing EYES AND EARS AND MOUTH AND…UMM..??? to her 75 times