Game Time

On the weekdays, the girls have a pretty strict schedule.  Bella does her homework with varying degrees of protest, but I think she mainly protests just to be funny.  It would work with me, but T is not having it.  I get to hang out with Erin at these times.  True to form, I never know if she is going to be super nice to me and want to snuggle and get tossed around, or if she is going to give me the cold shoulder and act like she has a restraining order against me.  After Bella finishes her homework we head upstairs to play some games after brushing teeth and putting on pajamas. 

 

     There are 3 games that we have to play to completion.  The first is a sort of charades game for kids.  You draw a card and have to act it out.  The girls are surprisingly good at it, particularly when they have to act out an animal.  They don’t just sit there and mime it out, rather, they go full tilt around the room roaring their heads off or screeching like a monkey depending on the card.  Sometimes I have no earthly idea what they are doing, like when Bella had to act out taking a bath and all I could think was that she was having a seizure.  She sort of assumed the posture of a hunchback and did this weird one legged sort of dance.  My other favorite part about this game is that Erin never wants to be wrong.  So if she has a guess about what the other person is acting, she will say it extremely softly.  Barely above a whisper.  Once she finds out she is right, she of course shouts it like she has never been more sure of anything in her life!  My entire goal, in this or any other game, is to annoy T.  I feel like I always more than accomplish my goal. 

     Next, we move on to sequence.  In this game, you get dealt cards with various animals on them and try to make a line of 4 of your chips before someone else does.  Here the girls have learned that sometimes a good defense is as much, if not more fun, than a strong offense.  Bella in particular seems to enjoy thwarting my plans and blocking me at the last moment when I am one chip away from getting 4 in a row.  I have never been able to convince them to join me in an alliance to overthrow T.  Erin is very much a loose cannon in this game.  Sometimes she is intent on winning, other times she is intent on playing a particular card regardless of its effect on overall strategy.  Perhaps my favorite thing that Erin does in this game is after a couple of turns she starts ending every sentence with “and I win?”  So for instance if someone suggests playing a certain card, she will ask in her cute little voice “and I win”?  Perhaps even better than this is when she does win, because she stands up, and starts jumping around and celebrating like she just won the lottery. She has a huge grin and you can’t help but laugh along with her. T taught her good sportsmanship so both Bella and Erin will acknowledge those less fortunate with a handshake and a “good game”. 

 

 The final game is my least favorite, but I still love it.  It is called Disney Cupcake Factory, a game I never thought I would play.  Here, there are a bunch of plastic cupcake parts, wrappers, cakes, frosting and toppers.  Based on your card, you have certain colors and shapes that you are going after.  At this point, the girls have their favorite princesses, so there is no way that Bella will ever let me be Pochohantas (who I did not know was considered a princess) or Sleeping Beauty.  However, the game is pure chance.  You draw from a series of tiles and you either get to pick up a piece of your cupcake or you get the dreaded clock tower.  If you get the clock tower you miss a turn.  However, and this is not in the rule book, everyone gets to yell out “Wop-Wop-Wop” to the person missing a turn.  Erin, loves this.  She has no problem with missing a turn as long as we all give her a hearty “Wop-Wop-Wop”  Bella is the exact opposite.  If she gets a run of bad luck and misses a few turns she gets pretty angry and threatens to quit.  She never does and is always over it within 12 seconds or so.  For a little while Erin tried to pull a fast one by putting her face on the floor and trying to peak under a tile before turning it all the way over.  This may have worked if she was invisible, but she did it very slowly and deliberately so she was pretty easy to catch.  Once again, the highlight is the girls finishing their cupcakes because then they get to leave the bakery.  Again, not part of the official rules.  Both of them like to give lengthy goodbyes to all the Princesses that have not left.  Particularly Erin, it may take her a good five minutes to get through all her remarks!  I wouldn’t trade it for the world