Raising My Niece

Tragedy

Chapter Two... Tragedy

 

Marcus and I loved to babysit young Addison. She was such a good kid, always doing as she's told and going down to sleep easily.

So when Marcus arrived home just after Jodie and Luke left for their date night, Addison was so excited to see her Uncle Marcus, or Uncle Moo as she called him because she couldn't say Marcus.

"Hey, honey," Marcus grinned as he walked over to me. He lightly kissed my cheek.

"How was work, babe?" I asked him, smiling. Addison was sitting next to me on the lounge, looking smug as she watched the cartoon show that was on.

"It was alright," he sighed. "Hello, miss Addy," Marcus added as he swiftly picked her up from over the back of the lounge. She squealed with both fright and excitement.

"Hey, Uncle Moo!" she laughed. "How you doin'?"

It was quite amusing that Marcus had spent a lot of time watching the TV show Friends with Addison. And out of all of the lines that were said on the show, she learnt Joey's 'How you doin'?' and always quoted it back to Marcus. It was cute to see them bonding like that, which they had done from when Addison was born.

"So... what's for dinner tonight?" he asked. "It smells amazing, and I am starving."

"You're for dinner," Addison said, poking his cheek.

"Or... is Addy for dinner?" Marcus teased.

"Nah," she said, shaking her head with a big smile on her face. "Never ever wever!"

"Wever isn't a word," he laughed.

"Yes, it is," she stated, folding her arms and frowning.

"Says who?" he asked her.

"Says Addy," she smiled.

"Ohhhh... Addy's making up words," he chuckled. "Here. Aunty Phoebe's gonna entertain you so that I can go have a shower."

Marcus put Addison back onto the lounge where she was sitting before. She sat there, laughing as she watched Marcus try to pull his socks off at the bottom of the staircase and stumble. I laughed too, but then Addison turned her attention to me.

"What's for dinner, Aunt Pheeb?" she asked me innocently.

"Chicken nuggets and mashed potato," I answered her.

"Mommy makes icky taties," she frowned. "Don't like mommy's taties." 'Taties' was potato. After spending a little while with Addison, you learnt to understand her adorable little words.

"Oh, I'm sure she doesn't," I laughed, but secretly I'd never liked Jodie's cooking skills myself. She tended to add odd ingredients to simple recipes. Once, she put sugar in a beef stir fry! It was uh... let's just say I couldn't eat it.

"I'm bored," Addison said with a heavy sigh. "And hungwy."

"Well, I think dinner's almost ready," I smiled.

About ten minutes later we ate dinner, where Marcus and Addison competed to see who could eat the most of their dinner. Of course, it was Marcus' ploy to get our young niece to eat all of her dinner. If you made it a game for her, she would usually eat it all.