Games That Parents Play
 

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