Go Fish...Cutthroat Style

The other day I was engaging the girls in a rousing game of Go Fish, when the game turned decidedly ugly. Kailey apparently felt the game was being played a little too nice, so she took it upon herself to turn up the heat by adding a little smack talk to the conversation. "Say goodbye to yer hopes!" she declared while laying a pair of 7's on the table. A moment of silence followed.

"Say goodbye to your hopes?" I asked, dumbfounded.

"Yep." Kailey replied as she stifled a giggle with her remaining cards.

"Don't you think that's a little drastic, saying goodbye to your hopes? And over what? A pair of 7's?"

Kailey held firm. "Yep. SAY GOODBYE TO YER HOPES!" she cackled. She had thrown down the gauntlet. We could either rise to the challenge or slink away, tail tightly tucked between legs. And I wasn't about to cave to an eight year-old.

"Oh yeah? Well say goodbye to YOUR hopes!" I declared after collecting a 2 from Kyra and slamming the pair on the table.

In retrospect, I realize that there's something fundamentally wrong with a father instructing his young children to kiss their hopes goodbye. I mean, they have their whole lives ahead of them. I should be helping them realize their hopes and dreams, encouraging them to pursue them; not dash them to pieces. But in my defense, Kailey started it.

The tone had been set, and that's the way the rest of the game played out, each of us trying to dash the hopes of the others with each play of the game. The girls got creative with their taunts. They weren't limited to the collection of a pair. "No I don't have a Jack," Kyra taunted. "So say goodbye to your hopes and GO FISH!"

This game was beginning to head south and quick, and I was to blame since I had propagated the whole thing, as dads are prone to do. The game ended and I decided to refocus the girls' riotous energy on something a little more productive:

Full contact tiddlywinks.

Should've Known Better

If I would operate under the premise that my wife knows what the hell she's doing, my life would be a lot easier and less of frustration at times. But I don't, so I blog.

Yesterday afternoon, I turned off the TV. The girls were home from school and had spent about an hour unwinding in front of the boob tube when I decided to be proactive and initiate a little daddy-daughters time. I went to the "game closet", which is actually a free-for-all junk closet where we happen to keep all of our board games, to see what we could play together. As I scanned the stacks of games, my eyes fell on a small tin box that I've never seen, or noticed, before. It was a Cranium card game called Matching Madness. I browsed the directions and it looked like it could be fun, so I took it out to the girls to see what they thought. Their faces brightened as I asked them if they had played the game before. "Yeah, we played it with Mommy. It's REALLY FUN."

Cool! Looks like we have a winner, I thought as we settled in on the floor for a game. Kyra gave me the rundown of the rules of the game as I shuffled the deck of cards, only her version of the rules were COMPLETELY different than the rules I recently read. Being the law and rule-abiding citizen I am, I reinstructed the girls on the rules of the game. Matching Madness was designed to be a fast-paced card game where the first person to play their card is the winner. The way the girls played the game with their Mommy took the fast pace, the very competition, out of the game. Mommy is not an idiot. Daddy is. Mommy understands that the girls don't compete well with one another. Daddy also understands this, but chooses to ignore that little tidbit of information.

So the game begins. Kyra, being the youngest and slowest on the draw, is getting slaughtered and is NOT having fun. I kept trying to encourage her not to give up and reminded her this was a GAME and that we were trying to have FUN. I then threw a bunch of hands so that Kyra could win. She won a couple of hands but was still in full pout mode when we came to a hand where Kailey had run out of a color that was in play. "I don't have any yellow!" she cried and then fled from the room, bawling her head off.

FOR THE LOVE OF MIKE WE'RE DOING THIS TO HAVE FRICKITY-FRICK-FRACK DADDY-DAUGHTERS TIME SO GET YOUR WHINEY BUTTS BACK IN HERE STOP YOUR POUTING AND CRYING AND LET'S PLAY THIS STUPID STINKING GAME AND HAVE SOME ZIPPIDY-DO-DA FUN!!

Thankfully, I was able to contain that little outburst to confines of my head (a slightly altered version to what was actually going on there), and I coaxed Kailey back into the room and promised them that we would scrap our current game, the way the game SHOULD be played, and play it Mommy's way. But the damage been done, and Matching Madness was a goner, going up in flames. So to make it up to them I agreed to play my favorite game in the whole wide world, Hide-n-Seek.

Incidentally, Cranium no longer makes Matching Madness. It's not listed on their website, it's not available in any online toy stores that I could find, and the only link I could find for it was on eBay (did you notice?)...for $3. Shocker. Stupid, piece of crap game. I'd much rather place the blame on the game and not on the fact that I overlooked the temperament of my girls and the ferocity of their sibling rivalry. Truth is, we need to place Cranium's Matching Madness back on the shelf of the "game closet" and let it gather dust there until the girls are emotionally mature enough to handle losing to one another. Because I just can't bring myself to play it Mommy's way.

Fathers, Do Not Exasperate Your Children!

My Dad loved to torture my brother and me when we were kids. Most kids love to wrestle with their dads, but we absolutely hated it because my Dad's idea of fun was pinning us to the floor and smothering us until we screamed bloody murder and pleaded for him to let us go. He thought this was great fun and would cackle with delight at our cries. "Jim," my Mom would plead, "Leave the boys alone." He would eventually let us go, but not until he was satisfied that we were truly hyperventilating and not just faking it. Whenever my brother and I saw that mischievous gleam in Dad's eye, we'd each try to throw the other in his direction in an attempt to make a clean getaway.

Now that I'm a Dad, I've learned my lesson...sort of. It might have been different if I had boys, but I don't. I still wrestle with the girls, but I'm always quick to remember those claustrophobic moments of my Dad pinning me to the floor. No, my torment of the girls has become more mental than physical. And I rationalize it. I figure they torment me for a majority of the day, so they can handle a few minutes of torment from me. Not to mention the fact that I just can't help myself. They hate it about as much as I hated becoming one with the green shag carpeting, but I just can't overcome the temptation. It's in my genes.

My favorite form of tormenting the girls goes like this. Every morning after we get up, the girls play for awhile and then they come find me.

"Daddy, I'm hungry."

"Well hello there, Hungry. My name's Daddy. It's good to meet you!"

"Nooooo, my TUMMY's hungry!"

"You named your tummy, Hungry? You're weird."

"Nooooo, Daddy! I DIDN'T NAME MY TUMMY HUNGRY! IIII'M HUNGRY!"

"I'm sorry, Hungry, I guess I just got a little confused."

"MY NAME'S NOT HUNGRY!"

"But you just told me that you were Hungry."

"I AM hungry!"

"Well make up your mind."

The same dialogue works for "thirsty", "hot", "cold", "tired", and pretty much any other adjective they use to describe themselves. If I'm in a merciful mood, I'll let them off the hook early. Most times I'm not. And all my fun will come to a screeching halt the day they finally learn to simply ask me for something to eat. I hope that day doesn't come soon. At least it's not as bad as eating carpeting.

Bummed

Kailey's first softball game of the season was this afternoon and I missed it because I had to work. It's times like these that I hate my weird work schedule and the inflexible hours. As the girls get older, it will become increasingly difficult to attend all of their extracurricular activities. And this year has become a little crazier as the girls are now in different age divisions for softball. And so it begins: double the practices and double the games. And it will be this way until they're ready to fly the coop. I just don't want to become the "absent dad"; the dad who missed special events because of work. And I don't want the girls to think that my work is more important than them. It's not. My work is a paycheck, nothing more, nothing less.

Kailey called me after the game and told me all about it. Actually, I had to drag it out of her as I grilled her with a barrage of questions. "What position did you play? Did you catch any pop-ups? Were any grounders hit to you? Did you throw them out? Did you get any hits? Did you win? Did you have fun?" She played right-center field and second base over the course of the game, which warmed my heart because I played second through high school. She had no pop-ups and one grounder, and struck out in one at-bat...we'll work on that...and she didn't know if they won. I love that. Wins and losses will matter one day, but for now, I just want her to learn the game and have fun. She was bummed about the strike-out because, she said, "the girl pitched too fast." Kailey's a good hitter, and she'll make those pitchers pay as soon as she learns to lay off the high heat.

Before we hung up I told her that I loved her and that I was proud of her, and she seemed to be OK with that. Her next game is Monday night and I'll be there, cheering her on and shaking my head as she digs in the dirt and chases butterflies around the outfield. I can't wait.