Finding Joy in Snarkville

No, eating is really not main reason.  That might mean I’d have to start cooking and not just randomly heating and burning things.

Allow me to back up.  When I was little girl, I had great fun playing Monopoly with my parents.  I remember sitting at the dinning room table and we’d play for days.  Yes, we’d leave the game set-up and play for what would probably seem like weeks, but was in reality a mere day or two.  I would be the banker, I’m sure it was my parents top-secret plan to teach me counting and money, but I (even then) craved the power of it all.  We’d buy, we’d sell, we’d make side deals, we were kings of Monopoly.   But what I remember the most was the laughter.  We’d giggle, over what I’ve long since forgotten, but we’d be ruthless (anyone want to watch face fall as they hit a hotel’d Boardwalk for the 4th time in a row) and yet, we were always having fun.

I go to bed at night plotting to buy some key piece of property that would make me the winner.  I’d never remember my grand plans in the morning.  But the one thing I always knew is that I would do that when my child(ren) were old enough.  I would play board games with my family too, because what else could possibly be this much fun?

So, when I make my trip to Target on the day after Thanksgiving last year I may have gone a wee bit overboard with the $2ish boardgames for the pre-school set.  Prince was mortified to say the least.  As I walked out with every single on of the cheap boardgames I remembered as a child: Candyland, Chuttes & Ladders, and HiHoCherryO; Prince looked at me and grumbled, “You know he’s going to want to play them with US, right?”  Oh, I could hope, I could only hope.

Well, I sat on those games until I was sure.  I wanted Duke to be old enough to catch the idea of turns and a goal line.  But not so old that the game concepts were beneath him or that he was all about the winning.  Well in the light  of all the big boy things that we’ve been doing lately, I’ve been thinking the time has come.  Then it happened, that one thing that was proof…

Duke and I were in his room.  I picked something up off the floor and Duke asked, “Mama, will you play with me.  Here’s Percy.  You be Percy.”  (Heart melt.  Visions of playing Barbie’s with my mother. Tears are in my eyes.) “Yes, son, I will play with you.”

We played and then we moved on and I asked Duke, “Have you ever played Candyland?”  Eyes wide he looked at me.  I grabbed the box.  We set it up on the kitchen table.  I slowly went through the 4 or so rules.  He picked his gingerbread man.  And we played.  We worked on constantly going forward.  We leaped ahead.  We counted squares.  We LAUGHED.  Oh, the laughter.  (I may have roped Prince in on a game while I went potty.  I think he was less than pleased.)

He’s currently begging to play more.  I can’t wait to show him the other games.  To know that he will begin to pick his favorites and we will get to play together.  I can’t wait to move from this to Cranium and Monopoly and ultimately, Spades and Blackjack.

In other highly fun news, Duke’s school had a visit from the fire station today.  He came home with all sorts of goodies and a story.

“Mama, when smoke comes out of the house, then I go to Mama and Daddy and say, ‘Mama & Daddy, there is fire.  We need to get out of the house.’ and then we get out of the house.”

“Good job, Buddy. Can you show me how to stop, drop, and roll?”

“No.”

Later, “Did you tell Daddy what to do if you see smoke?”

“Yes, I put on mask.” (I was hoping for the whole, get Mama & Daddy story — but alas, I’m assuming he saw the fireman’s mask.)

“You do?  What do you do then?”

“I breathe.”

Um, ok.  I think this kid is ready for the fire academy, don’t you?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 24th, 2007 at 7:11 pm and is filed under Motherhood isn't for wimps. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.