A Little Off the Top: The part-time parent

Being an uncle is great. You get all the benefits of having kids, except you can give them back when their diapers are dirty, and they start crying, and you have no financial, legal or other obligations when it comes to raising them.

Because I raised a steer for 4-H, I feel qualified to help raise my two nephews and three nieces whenever I get the chance. I see them once or twice a year, usually on family vacations or at Christmas time, and I'm just known as Uncle Ethan. Each time we see each other, they've grown two more inches, and I've lost more hair.

Like any adult who has never raised children, I'm very liberal with my advice to my siblings on how to raise their kids. When my nephew Caleb was born, I hit upon a brilliant idea, whereby if we tied his right arm behind his back, it would force him to become left-handed, and as everyone knows, left-handed baseball pitchers are worth a lot more in the draft than righties.

I'm always coming up with these nifty parenting ideas.

Fortunately, he turned out to be left-handed without my intervention, so I didn't bother to voice my suggestion to my sister-in-law. I'm sure she would have been pleased to hear how much I'd taken an interest in Caleb's future financial well-being.

At four, Caleb is at that stage where he absorbs everything like a sponge, so I have to be very careful what I do around him. Wanting to spend some quality time with him during a recent family vacation at the beach, I suggested we walk to a pier about a half mile away.

For Caleb, the pier represented his little Mecca — there was a store there that sold candy and plastic dinosaurs. I thought I'd be the Great Uncle Ethan and buy him some candy and a plastic dinosaur for walking that long way, a sure bonding experience.

We trudged along, and Caleb said "hi" to every woman in a bikini that we passed along the way. I can't imagine where he would have learned to do that, but it was nice to see that he has good manners at such a young age.

We reached the pier, and I dug deep for some money to buy him a little treat and a dinosaur. Maybe we'd luck out and find a Tyrannosaurus Rex or something.

And then my heart sank. We weren't in a store, but one of those beach arcades, where all the candy and plastic dinosaurs are won by games of chance.

You know those machines, the ones were you feed the quarters in and then you get to maneuver the mechanical claw, and try to pick up a stuffed animal or something. The way those machines work, the owner makes his investment back in about two days.

I thought about trying to explain the laws of probability to Caleb, and how there was a chance I wasn't going to be able to get anything for him, but I wasn't sure how to begin. ("Mommy, Uncle Ethan said if the blackjack dealer has an 18 then I should 'stay.'")

I looked at his face, and I knew what I had to do. The kid had just walked half a mile in the hot sand, and we had a return trip to make, and Uncle Ethan had said we'd get a piece of candy and a dinosaur … Years of relationship building could go down the tubes if I didn't get one or the other.

So, I put a five in the change machine and got a handful of quarters.

It was me against the machine, with a 4-year-old nephew looking anxiously over my shoulder, and I had 20 chances to win a piece of candy or a dinosaur.

A few tense minutes later, with the weight of the world and the hopes of a little boy at stake, I plucked a Tootsie Roll up from the heap in the machine, held my breath while the claw transferred it to the chute, and then reached down and grabbed it and gave it to Caleb.

That was it. That was all he wanted. Mission accomplished, we walked back to our family, while Caleb ate the most expensive 25-cent Tootsie Roll ever purchased.

Later that night I was reflecting on the fact that I spent $4.50 on a Tootsie Roll, and had to laugh at myself, wondering if it made any difference to Caleb.

I was standing over the grill cooking up that night's dinner for everyone, when he and the rest of the family came walking down the steps of the condo we were staying at. Even at 100 yards away, he looked up and waved, and called out across the parking lot, 'Hi, Uncle Ethan!'

Yes, I thought, I am the Great Uncle Ethan, even if I did pay $4.50 for a Tootsie Roll.