The Longest-Shortest Days

I sit on the floor with my little person who is not so little anymore.   She's four now -- make that four and half -- and she does big girl things, like rolling all five Yahtzee dice with her five chubby fingers and counting all the way to firfteen.  Her little piggies have grown, too, and instead of being baby-scented and pudgy, they sparkle with left-over patches of silver nail polish and smell a bit tangy.  Phew!  She dresses herself, choosing her own eclectic wardrobe of sequins and stripes, and gets her shoes on the correct feet fifty-percent of the time.  Before my very eyes, she is transforming from a "Mommy-help-me" baby to a "me-do" girl; the speed of life rockets past me.

And yet...

How can it be that it is only 3 o'clock in the afternoon?!?  Surely there must be some mistake as I'm quite certain that we've been playing CandyLand for hours!  Isn't time supposed to fly when you're having fun?  It would appear that there is a fracture in the time-space-continuum resulting in this curious and crazy longest-shortest day of my life.

Tick, tock...

She's getting better and better at shuffling the cards, but we're only half-way to the Candy Castle.  And according to the kitchen clock, it's only been nine minutes.  Mommy might need a stop off at the dark chocolate forest to make it through this afternoon!

_________________________

Linking up with Trifecta:  33-333 words inspired by the word fly.

3a : to move, pass, or spread quickly <rumors were flying>  

  b : to be moved with sudden extreme emotion <flew into a rage>  

  c : to seem to pass quickly <the time simply flew>

small things {hullabalooga}

small things #68 ... hullabalooga

"Welcome to Cranium Hullabaloo!"

The electronic MC announces the rules and Lydia heads to a purple Cranium pad.  Her goofy smile and bouncy feet tell me she's excited.

"Mommy!  You have to get on a purple guy.  You can stand with me!"

I step over to "Creative Cat" (and over the baby) and wait for the directions.

"Move over to a yellow."

I step over to the yellow triangle while Lydia dances over to the yellow circle.

"Fly to a square."

We flap our wings and head to the blue square.  Lydia dodges Baby S and her sorter box.

"Ha!  We sharing!"

"Crawl to an animal."

Lydia scurries on all fours to the elephant.  I stoop over and pretend to crawl to the monkey.

"Freeze!  Is anyone standing on the elephant?  If you are, you're the winner!  Winner?  Take a bow!"

Lydia claps for herself and bows deeply and dramatically.  One sweeping arm barely misses Baby S's noggin.

"I won!  I da winner!"

We step back on the purple pads.

"Samantha, no!  Mommy, Samantha has the elephant."

"That's okay.  I'll trade her this toy for the pad.  You get on a red pad."

"Slither to a musical instrument."

Baby S walks by with the piano.

"Get on a blue."

Lydia grabs Baby S by the hand and "helps" her find a blue.

"Hop to a triangle."

Lydia hops around Baby S and lands next to me on the red triangle.

"Freeze!  Is anyone standing on the red triangle?  If you are, you're the winner!  Winner?  Do a funky monkey dance!"

Lydia be-bops around the room, arms flailing and feet kicking, narrowly missing Baby S, who is also frenetically boogying.  I do my own rendition of John Travolta's "Stayin' Alive", much to Lydia's delight.

As we head back to our purple pads, Lydia protests that Baby S is putting the pads away.  Sure enough the baby has gathered up three pads and is walking back to the box.  I rescue the pads and redistribute them around the floor.  Frustrated, Baby S flaps her arms and plops herself down on the blue circle.

"Try this Hullabaloo move!  Put your knee on a circle.  Annnd ... touch your foot to a green.  Annnd ... put your nose on a food." ... annnd balance over the baby who is crawling under your belly.

We stretch and pretzel ourselves to reach the three pads and I fear I might not get back off the floor.

"Everybody stand up!  Walk on your tip-toes to a green."

We tip-toe to the spaghetti pad and Lydia hangs from my leg.

"Freeze!  Is anyone standing on the frog?  If you are, you're the winner!  Winner?  Do a victory jump!"

We look around.  Baby S is sucking on the frog.

"Samantha!  You da winner!  Jump!  Jump!  Jump!"

Baby S cries as she gets jumped and bumped to the floor.

"Want to play again?  Get on a purple Cranium pad to start."

Whew!  I'm about Hullabalooga-ed out!

Hullabalooga ...  Ashley changed the name and Baby S changed the rules.  It's a lively game where anything goes and everybody wins!

Soggy Game Day Fun!

It's 1:30 and I'm bushed!

This morning, we welcomed summer with a Wet, Wild and Wacky Wednesday of games!  Wow!  Here's how we stayed cool and crazy ... and how you can, too!

First up, Filler 'Er Up!

Each pair of kids got a cup with a ping pong ball in it and a squirt bottle filled with water.  Then standing face to face, they each took one step backwards.  One teammate held the cup while the other teammate squirted water into the cup from that distance.  The first team to fill the cup and have the ping pong ball float out won!  Which, in this case, was the boys!  This was the warm-up to getting soaked ...

Next up, No Hands Balloon Race!

The kids were divided up into groups of two.  For fun, I didn't group them by size, which meant that long and lean Rebekah was paired up with short and sweet Bethany ... and they were creatively successful!  Each pair had to walk their water balloon to the other side of the yard with the balloon nestled between their almost-touching backs.  They then passed the balloon to the next pair and so on.  This was certainly challenging!  For the second race, we changed things and let them carry the balloon nestled on their almost-touching bellies, which was significantly easier.  Lots of hugging and walking!

Next we played The Soggy Jog Relay!

We split the kids up into two teams and lined them up next to a big bin filled with water.  On the other side of the yard was a soccer ball.  Each kid had to race down, circle the soccer ball and race back wearing one of my pairs of sweatpants ... drenched in water.  Then they would peel the pants off, dunk them back in the bin of water and the next soggy jogger would wrestle their way into the pants.  This was my favorite game of the day, just for the hysterical laughter.  Watching Lydia with my sodden pants pulled up to her armpits, running across the yard was awesome!

Next up, Rainy Relay!

This relay race is one of my kids' favorites from their End-of-the-Year Field Day at school.  Each team has to fill a bucket of water on one side of the yard with a plastic Solo cup filled with water from a bucket on the other side of the yard.  Sounds easy enough, right?  This cup, however, has three holes punched in the bottom and the racers have to hold the cup firmly to their heads in order to have any water leftover to pour in their bucket.  I loved watching the kids race across the yard, water streaming down their necks to dump their mere tablespoons of water in their bucket!  Too funny ... and refreshing, too!

Finally, we played Water Balloon Towel Toss!

Each team of two gets one beach towel and one water balloon.  The object of the game is to keep your balloon in one piece while tossing it and catching it with your towel, parachute-style.  The key for our players was to have them count to three each time so they were both tossing and catching at the same time.  The boys really had fun with this game and were the last ones left with a water balloon.

The kids were certainly worn out by the end of the morning, but no one said, "It's too hot!!"

Here is the link for the games we played ... there are even more ideas to choose from!

Snapshots of Spring Break ~ Games!

Last Tuesday we enjoyed a Movie Marathon.  But, seeing as a post about that would consist of me describing the happily glazed over looks on my kids faces as we watched Puss 'n Boots, Mr. Popper's Penguins and, later in the evening, Hugo, I think I'll move on to Wednesday.

We invited our cousins and neighbor-buddy over for a day of games.  And boy, oh boy, did we play!  The day before, Norah noted down all the games we have in our house and put the slips of paper in a popcorn bucket.  Then we brainstormed outside games and filled another bucket with those slips of paper.  When the rest of the kids arrived, we were ready to go!

First we covered just a few rules:
1) Everybody plays every game ... even if it's a game you don't like or you don't think you're good at.
2) Be a good sport and cheer on everyone else. (Coincidentally, Kindness was the virtue of the day)
3) Have fun!

The first game we pulled from the bucket was Charades.  We had filled a ziplock bag with prompts so that we didn't spend our time thinking up something to act out.  Some of the answers were blurted out quickly while others required a few pointers from the adults.  The kids were great about cheering on the "charader" ... it was a great warm-up to our game marathon!

Before we got bored of acting out "Wizard of Oz" and "Phineas & Ferb" we quickly moved on the next game ... and the next and the next and the next.

The boys in the midst of an intense game of Minotaurus.

Meanwhile ...

The girls playing a cut-throat game of Spot It.

Some games took just a few minutes to play through, like Hat Stackers Memory Game, while Ticket to Ride was the 2-hour tournament that kept the big kids busy through nap time.  (My kids still talk about the train game ... looks like we have a new family game to purchase!)

That's a lot of train cars!  And smiles!

It was fun to see the kids enjoying one another and playing some of their favorite games.  The laughter and giggles were music to my ears.  I also loved that we didn't hear the words, "I'm bored" all day.  They never had a chance to get bored because we kept them busy, busy, busy!

Even the little ones kept busy with puzzles.  Lots of them!

My favorite games of the day were outside.

Just before lunch, we drew Obstacle Course ~ Outside from the popcorn bucket.  Within a few minutes we had pulled our mini-trampoline out into the driveway, rounded up frisbees and beanbags, and set up some cones for the scooter-portion of the race.  It was a hodge-podge of tricks and skills that everyone could do and it was a delight to see all the kids maneuver through the course being cheered and encouraged with each bounce, skip and scoot!  My mom actually has a mini-video of me demonstrating the course ... but I'm far too proud to share that with you.  The kids did it better anyways!

At the end of the day, the kids were getting twitchy so we headed out to the front yard again.  After a little game of Keep the Beach Ball In the Air (that is it's technical name...) we pulled out our big frisbee, a Skyo, and played a random game of 500.  Without the trouble of keeping score.

It was fun to see the kids laughing as they vied to catch the big orange frisbee.  Seeing as the boys were bigger and brawnier than the girls, we had to handicap them a few rounds to give the girls a chance.  One time they had to stand with one hand behind their backs, cross their legs and hop.  Another time they had to put their hiney's on the fence while the girls got to stand closer to me as I tossed it in the air. Still another time, they had to lay on their bellies until the frisbee was airborne.  Remarkably, in spite of these severe disadvantages, the girls still couldn't seem to catch it!  And that was even more funny!

I was thrilled to see that during these two particular outside events, the kids had positive attitudes and truly cheered on their opponents.  (Or at least 98.57% of the time!)  In the midst of a lot of silliness, laughter and goofiness, kindness stole the show!

In fact, that I have decided to begin researching more games for this summer's Game Days.  So, if you find yourself looking for something to do on Wednesdays come June, the odds are good that we'll be hosting another Game Day and you're welcome to join us.  Just be sure to bring a snack, your excitement for playing, a good attitude and a kind spirit ... we'll provide the rest!

 ¹² Therefore, as God’s chosen people, 

holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves 

with compassion, kindness, humility, 

gentleness and patience. 

(Colossians 3:12)

Clue ... less

Growing up, we had our favorite games.  At swim meets we played endless games of Spite & Malice.  A game whose title I just recently comprehended and considered changing.  We played Trivial Pursuit ... and I don't remember ever getting a yellow or blue piece because I am a self-acknowledged bone-head when it comes to history and geography.  We played Life and enjoyed stockpiling cash and kids.  (Kinda like this.)  We played half-games of Monopoly because none of us had the endurance to see the game to it's final play ... who of us had a five-hour attention span?  And we played Mexican Train Dominoes.  I love the click of the tiles and the rainbow of colored dots.  It's a really pretty game.

Of course we each had our favorites, but there was one game that my sister loved to play.  If ever we asked for her input (How often did that actually happen, Allison?), she would always choose Clue.  Unfortunately, that is one game that requires a minimum of three players so she would have to convince both Joshua and I to play.  Not an easy task.  And not a very common occurrence.  A painful childhood memory for my Sissy, perhaps. :)  Sorry.

A few months ago, Aaron and Norah discovered that we had a Clue game and wanted to give it a go.  A flood of my own memories came to mind:  sneakily marking our sheets, covertly sliding our cards across the table, making Suggestions and Accusations.  I decided, albeit reluctantly, that we could pull it out of the closet and try it out.  Of course, it was an immediate hit and has become the game of choice among the two older kids.  (And "yes", sometimes just the two of them play it.  You might think that would lead to a rather quick game, but it doesn't.  Even if they say out loud the cards they have, it's still a really long game.  Go figure.)

As you can imagine, this isn't exactly a game for the younger two as you are required to read, write and not eat any of the pieces.  And that brings me to this morning. :)

As a side note, this is the Simpson's version of Clue ... so if I slip and refer to Bart - I actually mean Professor Purple.  And if you hear reference to a Poisoned Donut or the Burns Manor, don't be confused.  Just try to play along...

This weekend we enjoyed a stay-home Saturday which meant that immediately the kids started asking what we were going to do and declaring that they were bored.  At 9 am.  We sent the kids upstairs to make a list of things they would like to do and they could present to us our options to choose from.  Two of the ideas were "Lego-building" and "playing a game".  Brett got Aaron and the Legos.  I got Clue and the girls.  Hmmm .... that sounds kind of suspicious. :)

We plopped down at the table and Norah got busy shuffling cards and pulling the three clues to go in the "Confidential" envelope.  We then dispersed the characters and weapons to the different rooms.  I chose to be Bart/Prof. Purple.  Ashley and Norah argued over Lisa/Ms. Scarlett (sound familiar, Allison?).  Eventually Ashley won the battle and Norah grudgingly chose Krusty/Col. Mustard.  Lydia claimed everyone else.

Next we took our cards and began to mark them off on our little check list.  And hit the first road-bump.  Ashley is a pre-reader, making this portion of the game a challenge ... seeing as she needs to keep them a secret!  No problem.  She headed up to Daddy to go over her cards.  Now we're set.

The game started off pretty well.  Lydia had wandered upstairs to check out the Lego creations and that left us big girls to roll the dice, move around the board, make suggestions and not wrestle with our baby monkey.  Ashley had played on my team previously, so she was familiar with how the game works.  She quickly picked up how to discreetly show us a card and (with a little help) how to find the name on her check list to mark off when shown a card.  Norah was strategizing her plays and slowly whittling down the suspects.  Then it got creative.

Lydia came back downstairs and commandeered all the weapons and the three suspects not being used.  This made the game a little more tricky because you had to announce your suggestion and then announce it again.  And again.  And maybe one more time because there was no visual reminder of what you had said.  The visual reminders were piled up in Lydia's lap.  No problem.  We're smart and we can keep up.

About three-quarters of the way through the game (and 98% of the way through my patience and the girls' interest) the game started getting a little sloppy.  Norah had begun to balance precariously in her seat, perhaps as a result of wearing a leotard.  It's hard to just sit when you're dressed to cartwheel.  Ashley repeatedly laid her cards face-up next to her unfolded check-list.  Lydia ran off with the dice a few times and I did my deep breathing.

My favorite part of this portion of the game was when Ashley was going to make a Suggestion.  She moved Bart to the Simpson's Living Room and gave him the Plutonium Rod.  I asked, "Is this what you want to ask?"  She responded with, "I have all those."  Ah-ha.  What do you do with that little bit of info?  As a mom can you mark all those off?  A bit of an ethical dilemma Norah didn't appear to have as she reached for her check-list and pencil.  I'll confess that I marked down those suspects, too.  We were an hour into a game that needed to come to an end.  Soon. :)

At this point, Norah started the aerobic portion of the Clue game by standing next to her chair with one foot on the seat and then jumping and switching feet.  Try it.  It's hard to do while paying attention to all the details, but somehow she managed.  Ashley was furiously sucking her thumb and trying not to suck her thumb and argued with Lydia about not taking Lisa/Ms. Scarlet and moving her from room to room.  Or hiding her back in the box.  I did some more deep breathing and tried to relax my shoulders and jaw.

Finally, I had narrowed down the suspects, weapons and locations.  On my last turn (1 hour and 16 minutes into the game) I made one more Suggestion just to make sure I had the right room.  Then I made my accusation, confirmed my suspicions (Waylon Smithers/Ms. White in the Burns Manor with the Necklace), caught Lydia just as fell of my lap and stabbed her in the eye with my finger-nail, drawing blood.  What a grand finale!

Norah smiled and said something like, "I knew it ... I just didn't know who did it."  Ashley looked relieved that the game was over and wandered off to find something else to do.  Lydia went to be comforted by her Daddy ... and have her eye checked out.  And I boxed up the game as quickly as possible and put it away.  Whew!  I survived another game of Clue ...

Anybody want to play Rummikub?

Yep ... That's Life

If you have visited this blog before, you know that we live in a busy house.  Between girls practicing cartwheels, boys re-inacting Clone Wars battle scenes and kids running, leaping and wrestling, our home is literally thumping with life.  There is always something going on somewhere:  games, puzzles, videos, chores, tea parties ... you name it, we have it.

Just the other night, we were all around the table doing life in our own way.  Aaron was balancing on the back legs of his chair (Four on the floor, Dude!), Norah was cracking jokes and talking in her squawky-talky voice (Makes my head hurt, Sweetie!), Ashley was standing on her chair so she could be in the action (Bottom or knees, Missy!), Lydia was stretching across the table on her belly trying to get her hands on some contraband (Not for you, Weeda, sorry.) and Brett and I were trying to keep ahead of the chaos and have a little order.

Now imagine all these players ... and imagine in the middle of all this craziness ... the game of "Life".  Tired yet?

As the game progressed, it was interesting to see the individual personalities come out in each of us.  Maybe a few snapshots of our real life down the road.

Brett played "banker" and did a great job of keeping up with the kids and all their money needs.  Bills passed back and forth from player to banker and back again.  I can just imagine him in a couple of years handing out the kids' allowances and playing "banker" when their money runs out.  Of course, we will be dealing in much smaller bills. :)  He also was given the responsibility of keeping the kids on task and in order while keeping me from going insane.

Aaron was on a mission.  Right off the start he was buying stocks, trading up for a better salary and speeding across the board with each spin of the wheel.  He thought every turn was his turn and we repeatedly had to remind him to wait.  He was definitely in a hurry to get somewhere and he went pell-mell until he arrived at "retirement".  Along the way he made a lot of money and spent a lot of money and in spite of the ups-and-downs of the game, he had a good time!

Norah experienced a bit more of an emotional game of "Life".  She started off a bit bumpy with a relatively low salary.  She was a little pokey in the spinning department and seemed to lag along behind the rest of us.  She felt each and every play ... if her spin brought her a surprise windfall, she was ecstatic ... if her spin cost her any cash, she was gloomy and moody until her next turn.  "Life" did not improve for poor Norah and she ended up having to start a new career half-way through the game at an even lower salary.  The wailing and tears at the end of the game were real ... even if the game was not.  Here's hoping that our real future with Norah isn't as emotionally charged! :)

Ashley was just along for the ride.  She enjoyed organizing her money and cards ... even at the cost of possibly organizing some of her cash into Aaron's pile.  She filled her van with little babies (girls only, please) and poked along near the back of the herd.  She never bought a stock card, never cried over losing her turn and never yelled "boo-yeah!" when she got to trade up her $70,000 salary card for my $100,000 salary card.  She puttered along and seemed surprised when she reached the end of the road.  Her focus was most certainly on the social aspect of the game ... and the refreshments.

Lydia played a different version of "Life".  She had her little white car, one little pink person and a cup.  She was happy enough to zoom her little car around the table, practice her "vrooming" sound-effects, shuffle my cash and re-organize my cards and Life Tiles.  She fussed a few times because we wouldn't let her spin the wheel, mainly because a spin from Godzlydia equaled an earthquake measuring 9.7 on the Richter scale.  As is usual with our little Liddy, she played her own game and was happy with the outcome:  one little pink person wet from drool, one pile of someone else's cash spread from one end of the table to the other and one belly full of milk.  Perfect.

My game of "Life" also seemed to be an interesting reflection of my real life.  In the beginning of the game, I started out rather slow, but as the game moved along, my "life" speeded up!  Exactly how my days feel now ... zoom!  Where does the time go?!  I experienced very little excitement during my turns - just the usual day-to-day aspects of life.  Except for the tennis lessons I gave Norah ... now that would have been exciting! :)  As my life experiences began to add up, I ended up with several "boo-yeah!" plays that resulted in a nice little stack of cash.  In the end, it turned out that I won with about $4.1 million dollars.  Wow!  Definitely not like my real life!  But ... while I may not be a millionaire, I am still very rich ... you know, in love and family and such. :)

The only aspect of my "Life" life that didn't add up was the lack of kids in my van.  Apparently I chose my career over a family ... a choice I'm happy I didn't make in my real life!  I can't imagine how boring my life would be without these lively kids.

It would be quieter maybe ... but not nearly as much fun!