Wednesday, September 10, 2008, will always be a special day to me.

It was my little nephew's first day at school and I would have given an arm and a leg to have been there but unfortunately, work got in the way.

I am told he cried - screamed uncontrollably would be more appropriate - but eventually he settled down and was being quite attentive in class, something I have a hard time wrapping my mind around.

You see Matthew Clarke is a little 'thug'. The most adorable little thug, who is built like a wrestler, likes to be in control, terrorises his eight-year-old sister, his six-year-old brother and who hates me.

So I kind of find it hard to visualise him sitting still and not being in command of his environment. He insists on having the keys to his parents' or his aunt's vehicles whenever they visit.

Sneak out

He does that I believe because he likes to be the one to determine, if and when they leave the house. There are times, when he is not asleep, when his aunt has to sneak out of the house to prevent him from throwing a fit.

And when he is travelling with his parents he is the one who inserts the key into the ignition switch before he takes his seat. He hates when that does not happen.

He hates me because he is in love with my wife, well, was, because these days he has the 'hots' for her sister. He apparently has a thing for older women. Doesn't matter how much older they are as long as they are. Truth is, at his age, two-plus, he'd be hard-pressed to find many interesting women younger than he is.

When he was born I was living abroad and only saw pictures of him - tiny and shrivelled as a little puppy - that my sister sent via email as I suffered in St. Maarten. She sent pictures often enough for me to 'digitally' watch him grow into a thick-legged little terrorist.

Have nightmares

If he maintains that body image he is going to grow into a lighter-skinned version of Mike Tyson.

By the time I returned home at the end of last year he and I had a relationship of sorts. That is, until he met my wife and then began seeing me as an obstacle to getting to her.

He is going to have nightmares when he gets older and realises that he was in heat for his 'auntie' but such is life. There was a time, a few months ago when whenever we were around him, he would demand that she not even look at me.

It got to a point where the minute we arrived at his home, he would take my wife by the hand and lead her away from me.

At other times he would literally hold her head and turn her eyes away from me. And he would completely ignore me and shrug whenever I called him or tried to lift him.

He even developed the habit of complaining to anyone who would listen that they should tell 'uncle to stop it' in response to me calling him, touching him, walking by him, looking at him, you get the picture.

Matt had launched a one-man campaign against me.

Love interest

Anyhow, recently he has taken a shine to his other aunt - my wife's sister and has pretty much dropped her like a hot potato.

The other night he had her on the phone and when he realised it wasn't his new love interest, he simply put the phone down and walked away.

This happened only a couple of days after he visited my house and threw an amazing fit - his little arms and legs swinging as he lay on his back like a toy robot would after it had fallen but still trying to walk, only much faster.

This, as my wife and his new love were leaving to attend a play.

He doesn't hate me so much now and for that I am grateful.

He described his first day as 'bad' but he reportedly found a new girl and he thinks his school bag is pretty - a pretty decent start. I can only anticipate that as he assumes control of his environment what comes next will be the stuff of legend.

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