Early in our
marriage, my husband and I developed quite a
comfortable evening ritual. After dinner, once all the
necessary chores were completed, one or the other of
us would issue a "challenge." Then, clad in our
pajamas, we would sprawl out on the living room floor
and spend an hour or two facing off over games such as
Scrabble, Aggravation, or Uno. That, of course, was in
the days BC - before child. Now the Uno cards have
teeth marks, the Aggravation marbles are stored safely
away (choking hazard), and we haven't seen the coveted
"Q" tile from Scrabble in months.
This is not to say, however, that we no
longer enjoy an evening of fun and games. The games we
indulge in have just, well, changed a bit.
Find the Floor Materials necessary: wooden building blocks,
toy cars, stuffed animals (preferably the small,
bean-bag variety), one load of clean laundry - all
items must be strewn throughout at least three
different rooms.
Object:
each player begins with two empty containers meant to
hold the above-mentioned materials, the first to fill
both containers with all and only the correct playing
pieces wins. <continued below>
Levels of difficulty:
players earn bonus points for success if either a) the
owner of the toys (i.e. child) is still awake during
the game or b) a teething puppy is allowed to run
through the field of play.
Name That Smudge Materials necessary: any surface that can
only be cleaned with glass cleaner.
Object:
each player attempts to identify as
many different fingerprints, handprints, tongue
prints, paw prints, nose prints, crayon marks, mashed
potato smears, etc. as possible.
Levels of difficulty:
players earn bonus points for correctly
differentiating between prints made by more than one
child or pet. Double bonus points are earned by
cleaning up the smudges as they are identified.
Call That Stall Materials necessary: at least one verbal
child who is at least five minutes past his or her
bedtime, glass of water, one more bedtime story,
stuffed animals, favorite blanket, etc.
Object:
to guess, in the correct order, the stalling tactics
that said child will employ on the evening in
question.
Levels of difficulty:
players earn bonus points for scaring the monsters out
from under the bed on the first try without letting
them sneak into the closet.
Occasionally, after our daughter is
in bed, my husband and I still do manage to trounce
each other over a game of Battleship or Yahtzee. We
are torn between treasuring these precious few years
when our daughter still goes to bed before we do and
yearning for the evenings when we can roll dice on the
table without fear of waking her.
I've been warned however, that with
adolescence comes a whole new set of games like Heal
that Heartbreak and Keeper of the Curfew. Milton
Bradley has nothing on parenthood!
Jennifer Doloski is a stay-at-home mom and freelance
writer from Illinois. She is a regular contributor to
The Daily Times of Ottawa, IL.
Suite 101 Parenting Humor
