Stan looked down at the two toddlers sharing the armchair with him, having been entrusted with them briefly while their parents mingled with the other extended family being hosted for Shermie's other son's wedding. Mason sat on the ottoman facing away from everyone. He was shy, apparently even without guests around. Any attempt to ask him how he liked preschool, what his favorite color was, or what he wanted to do when he grew up was met with murmurs that were probably saying I dunno or something of the like, but were hard to make out. Eventually he gave up and decided to try and talk to the little girl on his lap wearing way more bows and barrettes than she needed.

"So, Mabel," he said, as she stared up at him with bright eyes and the saccharine-sweet smile of a kid from a stock photo inside a picture frame on a store shelf. "How 'bout you? How's school goin'?"

Immediately she jumped down to the floor and ran off. At first Stan thought maybe she was scared of him or just nervous like her brother, but her expression hadn't changed at all, she wasn't crying or screaming, and she skipped part of the way to wherever she was headed. Before long, she was skipping back with a piece of paper in her hand. She stopped in front of the armchair where her uncle and brother were seated and held it up proudly, displaying a whole page of obnoxiously colorful stickers with awful puns on them.

"My teacher gave me these!"

She shoved the stickers into Stan's hands, presumably so he could examine these wonders more closely.

"They're, uh, nice," he managed.

"I like that one best," she said, standing on her tiptoes on the side of the chair to point out one with a drawing of a bunch of grapes with surrounding text that read 'Have a grape day!'

"Yeah? You like the color?"

She nodded.

"Purple's your favorite?"

She shook her head vigorously.

"No?" he said. "What's your favorite color?"

"All of 'em," she declared.

"That explains the hair, then," he said, despite his best efforts so far not to say anything to them that could somehow come across as an insult. He wasn't great at word choice with other adults, so kids couldn't be much easier, and the outcome of offending them was definitely worse in his experience.

But as scared as he was that she would burst into tears or stomp out of the room in a huff, she just kept grinning at him and nodded again.

"Okay, well...you got a favorite book?"

He realized the second the words left his mouth that she was about to dart off again if she did have one, and sure enough, she rushed down the hall past all her aunts and uncles and cousins to go get his answer for him. Mason was looking down at the floor silently.

"So your sister got all the spunk, huh?"

"Yeah," Mason said quietly, shuffling around to face him, though it was pretty possible he didn't know what that meant.

"What'd you get?"

"I'm...um...I'm good at math." It sounded like a question, or a lie he wasn't sure Stan was going to buy.

"Are ya?"

"Yeah."

"Prove it. What's two plus two?"

"F-four…"

"Five plus three?"

"Si - no, eight!" He looked up at his great uncle anxiously, as if expecting him to scrutinize his mathematical skill.

"Heh," Stan ruffled Mason's hair, making him flinch. "Ain't you a little poindexter?" As he said it, his ears caught a voice even higher-pitched than this kid's.

Looking up toward the top of the stairs, he found that the source of the noise was his niece running back again, this time holding a small paperback book and a stuffed bear with a bowler hat. As she passed a few of her other relatives, she held the bear up to them and chirped, "Wokka wokka! Wokka wokka!" The grown-ups chuckled in return and reaffirmed to her that yes, that was what he was supposed to say.

She skipped up to Stan's side once again, this time shoving a book with a big brown rabbit on the cover in his face.

"Cute," he said, gently pushing it away.

"Pet it," she raised it up again.

"What?"

She demonstrated by running her hand up and down the drawing of the rabbit, which he now noticed protruded a bit from the cover. He humored her and did the same. It was velvety to the touch - probably perfect for her. She flipped to a page in the middle of the book and waited for him to pet an illustration of an otter swimming in a river.

"Yeah, that's real nice, kid," he said, his annoyance now a little more noticeable to everyone but her.

Unfazed, she dropped the hand holding the book to her side and lifted the one holding her bear. This time she didn't say anything, just stared up at him intently. He glanced at Mason, who seemed to be equally confused.

"Wh-whaddaya want me to do?"

Still silent, she dropped the book on the floor, pushed herself up onto the armrest, climbed back onto his lap, and pointed to her stuffed animal's bulbous pink nose. Stan furrowed his brow, and when she saw he still wasn't getting the message, she squished his nose with her free hand.

"Very funny," he sighed, nasally-voiced from Mabel blocking his airway. She laughed, looking awfully pleased with herself and even getting her brother to manage a giggle as well.