He's not my son, but he is definitely my boy

I was visiting Hera and the boys (Natey is 4, Colin is 8 months) when I got a bright idea from VH-1's top 100 80s bands countdown.

"Mind if I give Natey a faux-hawk?"

"Hnm. He's kind of picky about his hair. I tried to put gel in it earlier and he wouldn't let me."

"Hey, Naynay, come here. Can I do something with your hair? It'll be cool, I promise!"

He looked at me suspiciously for a second but then cheerfully agreed.

I got the mousse out of the bathroom, came back to the living room, arranged him in front of me, waxed poetic about the coolness of spikey hair and how awesome he was going to look, and went to work.

"Ooh, my, how handsome you look! Let's go look in the mirror!"

We went into the bathroom and Natey climbed up on the edge of the tub and peered in the mirror. To my surprise he gave a satisfied smile and patted the top of his hair gently.

"You look so cute!"

"I know!"

The way he said "I know" totally caught me off guard. He wasn't saying it out of conceit, or vanity, he was simply agreeing with me just as if I had pointed out "Hey look, you have two eyes!" or something. What I wouldn't give for the self esteem of a 4 year old.

"You like your hair?"

"It's pointy!"

We went back into the living room and Hera asked if I would mind watching the kids while she went to get a pizza.

Natey and I cuddled up on the couch while the baby bopped around in his bouncy chair. Joan Jett was on TV.

"Hey Naynay, look, she has hair like yours!"

"Yeah, she's got pointy hair!"

Hera came back with the pizza. We settled back on the couch with pizza and breadsticks.

"I have an idea. For Halloween, let's dress Natey up as a punk or New Waver. We can get him a little piano key tie and a neon shirt and make his hair all spikey."

"He doesn't really know what Halloween is about yet. He missed it last year because he was sick."

Billy Idol was on the countdown now. Oh how I love Billy Idol. Seriously. I want to have his sneering, tattooed, leather wearing baby.

"Natey, what do you think about dressing up like him for Halloween?" and I pointed at the TV.

Natey agreed, but I could tell it hadn't clicked with him what I was talking about.

"When we go trick or treating, we can make your hair pointy like his, would you like that?"

And I saw the wee lightbulb come on above his head.

"Oooh trick or treating... I can go as a cool fun grown-up, yeah!"

My nephew called Billy Idol a cool fun grown-up. I get such a kick out of this.

The icing on the cake was Hera telling me that Natey also has picked up some AC-DC lyrics. Her husband was cleaning the house singing, "It's a long way to the top..." and he paused for a second to focus on what he was doing only to hear behind him "...if you wanna rock n roll."

ETA: Being the most awesome of all awesome aunts, ev-errrr, I got him this tshirt a few months ago (pic shamelessly ganked from ebay):



There is also one that says, "For those about to read, we salute you." TOO CUTE.