You Should See Me Play Mega Man 3

My cousin Jeff and his wife Tamra have fashioned themselves a pretty fantastic life.

They have a perfect home (see below) in the perfect location (five miles from the Space Needle, right on a lake) that houses two gifted kids and two pleasantly odd dogs.

Tamra owns her own consulting business and Jeff plays in a band that is good enough to get consistent paying gigs. He also cooks, and it not only tastes delicious, it is perfectly healthy. During dinner I enjoy a carrot for the first time in my life. To be clear, I've had many carrots, but this time Bugs Bunny started to make more sense. It was, well, the perfect carrot.

Ivy, 13, and Wilson, 8, seem to agree, as they both eat their vegetables. The reward is a delicious berry sorbet that the kids made themselves. After dinner, Jeff convinces Ivy to play some music on the living room piano. Ivy is getting over a cold, so she is hesitant to sing, but after some prodding, she agrees to play an original composition.

I'm nervous about having to lie about enjoying Ivy's song, despite her assurances that two friends at school have respectfully labeled her a "musical genius" and "capable of selling records." I've heard that on many an American Idol audition, and it never pans out.

Only when Ivy starts to play her song, I am pleasantly surprised. Ivy's melodies belie her age and her singing is uniquely beautiful. What an incredibly talented kid, and she did it despite having a gene pool similar to mine. After playing a song far better than anything I could possibly imagine creating, young Ivy goes upstairs to do her homework. Tomorrow, she will awake to this view outside her house:

Wilson goes downstairs to play video games, and I soon follow, hoping to boost my ego by out dueling the eight-year-old in a game of Mega Man 2. Though I narrowly edge Wilson out, thus proving that my skills are at the very least a 4th grade level, Wilson takes it in stride.


He pets one of the oddest looking animals I have ever encountered, a Scottie Poodle mix I immediately wish to adopt, then goes upstairs to have his normal bedtime snack...an apple.

"Sometimes I'm convinced that we're raising our kids to be yuppies," Jeff admits jokingly.

It's the kind of joke made only by a parent who is quietly confident he is helping to raise some pretty great kids.

And Jeff and Tamra certainly are raising some great kids.