Isobel: "Daddy, can I have a snack?"
Daddy: "Sure."
Isobel:(ten minutes later) "Daddy, can I have a juice box?"
Daddy: "Sure. Did you pick up the bowl from your snack?"
Isobel: "Yup."
Isobel:(five minutes later) Daddy, can I have some cookies?"
Daddy: "Sure."
Isobel: "See ya."
Daddy:(getting up and walking into the living room only to discover three empty juice box containers and two empty snack bowls.) "Isobel, get in here."
Isobel: "What?"
Daddy: "What do you mean what? You told me you cleaned up this mess."
Isobel: "Well I didn't think...crap."
Daddy: "You didn't think you had to clean this all up?"
Isobel: "I didn't think you'd get up and look."
When The Boy was younger, it was always a difficult thing to play games with him. Any game. He always had to win and would want to bend the rules to make certain he did. When he was very young and we were playing games like snakes and ladders and tiddly winks (the rules of which have apparently changed from flipping coloured disks to lets see who can spread the little coloured disks around the table and then knock them on the floor in a fit of blind rage the quickest) it was fine to let him win. Hell, who could it hurt? The Boy didn't socialize with too many of my peer group and I was fairly certain Mrs. Narrator wouldn't rat me out for losing seven consecutive snakes and ladders contests.(In reality, I don't know that we played the actual game of snakes and ladders. But you get the drift of the game scenario, yes?)
As time went on and the wind started to whistle in the willows (wait, what?) Seriously, as The Boy got older and the games changed, he started to play things that I used to play. Monopoly and Risk and games that were fun, not just distracting bits of fluff. He also started to get better at video games. Much better. Where before he would actually ask me to play the game while he watched. Now he wanted to play and he did it well.
He still wanted to win and would get upset when he didn't. It was difficult trying to teach him that you can't always win everything and trying to understand that maybe his ADD was having an effect on his not understanding that. It was frustrating for me and more often than not, it was me who would stop playing any of these games. Partly because I didn't want to get angry over something as simple as a game of Monopoly and partly because I enjoyed playing these games competitively too and it wasn't much fun if you always knew the outcome. In retrospect it seems petty and stupid...it's monopoly or any other silly game for Christ's sake. The end result was if board games came out, he would no longer ask me to play. Before you get all boo-hoo on me, the video games never stopped. We still had those to play together and still do when he isn't playing one of the games he loves.( that I just don't get)
Fast forward a year or two and we are on vacation at Blue Mountain ( a quasi ski resort in Ontario. Naturally we went in the summer) In the resort there are many sweet shops and sidewalk cafes, that sort of thing but there were also giant outdoor chess and checkers sets. After a few rounds of stack the giant checkers with Isobel and declaring her the winner and champion of the universe, The Boy asked me to play chess with him.
"Do you know how to play chess?" I asked.
"I'm learning at school." he replied.
I was on the chess team in high school for a time. I am no Bobby Fischer by any stretch but I do enjoy the game. I figured this was a good way to teach him about losing well and gracefully. I figured at this age there was still a better than average chance I could beat him. I did. He didn't take it well and tried to talk his way out of it BUT he took it and I was proud of him for it. That year for Christmas, Santa (or maybe it was us) got him an electronic chess set. The pieces of which are tiny and my fingers, despite years of being stretched around the neck of a bass, are still too large to move pieces without knocking over six or seven others in the process. I beat him a second time but by a much narrower margin than before. He didn't ask to play chess with me for a very
long time after that game.One day, not that long ago he came home with a queen (stop it, not that kind) that had been spray painted gold.
"What's this?" I asked.
"Oh, I won the chess tournament." he said nonchalantly.
"Your class had a chess tournament? How many people did you play?"
"Not just my class," he said. "The whole school, everybody who plays chess. I don't know how many I played. A lot."
"You are the chess champion of the whole school?" I asked.
"Yeah."
He didn't ask me to play again until almost a week later. I figured he might. I was dying to play him again but I figured I"d let him decide when. Soon, I thought, I would be whipping the proverbial ass of the school champion...You don't get a gold queen for nothing.
We set up to play and within the first ten minuted he had three of my pieces. His game was organized and merciless but not flawless. I took a couple of his pieces and I could tell he hadn't expected me to get any. He doubled his efforts and poured on the pressure.
And then there it was. He had me but he hadn't seen it or didn't believe it. He made a different move altogether, one that did him no good what so ever...I tried, as best I could, to exploit this mistake on his part but and remember the part where I said I wasn't Bobby Fischer? Icouldn't stop the inevitable. He beat me soundly. Not only did he beat me, he whipped my ass. He insisted on taking every piece of mine off the board...because he could. At eleven years old, he is a better player than I was ever or ever will be...I should take him to Central Park and get him into some of the big cash games...hell, within a year or two we could pay off the house.
Foosh....I'll bet that's the sound it made. It couldn't have been any other sound. Not like dropping a toy which might be a 'bang' or spilling a glass of milk which is kind of a 'ker-splosh'. Snapping crayons go 'Krek'. Throwing a cat against the couch makes a 'Gafuffle-mrow' kind of noise. And the best is shaking the bottle of ketchup and opening it only to discover that air has built up inside and your easy pour dispenser is now a condiment cannon 'Fart-splock'. You know the sound, don't pretend it's never happened to you...but Foosh...
Foosh is very likely the sound it makes when your six your old daughter goes into the bathroom with an entire bottle of body glitter dust and decides it would be a good idea to close the door and let the good times roll.
She went in there, ostensibly to put on her regular six year old Barbie type make up. I saw no glitter. I heard the door close and still thought nothing of it. Maybe she wanted a little privacy to do her business or maybe she wanted the fantastic make up job to be a surprise for everyone. She is creative, I didn't want to stifle it if she was having a moment.
She was in there for five or ten minutes and I heard the door open slightly and out came a cat, running and shaking it's head. I didn't recall the cat being sparkly when we brou
ght it home and went to investigate further.If the blue fairy had knocked on our door begging to use the toilet because she had a hellacious case of the screaming shits and locked herself in for twenty seven minutes, there could not have possibly been more glitter in the bathroom. On the sink, the floor, in the floor mats, the ceiling , the toilet cover, any concievable surface where glitter could get, it got. The one place it didn't seem to get in any amount was my daughter. She was remarkably glitter free save from the generous portions around her eyes. I'm guessing this was her original target, somehow gone horribly awry...if there is anyone out there with any PCB's or toxic waste they need to get rid of, feel free to bring them over here. They have to be easier to clean up than disco glitter...FOOSH
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