Letter to my children: Dinner Games
/Dearest Beloveds,
I know I need to focus and go back to the outline I made of what I wanted to cover for you two in these letters, but I feel this is super awesome and I don’t want to miss this.
There are three games we are currently playing at dinner: I Spy, Animal Vegetable Mineral, and Guess the Number - each with their own vagaries, shall we say. I Spy is fairly straightforward.
Dragon, “I spy with my little eye something yellow.” Then we all guess and can usually figure it out fairly quickly.
Animal, Vegetable, Mineral involves partners because sometimes the items can be tricky.
Bean and I will drum on the table and sing while the Dragon whispers his to Dada.
Bean, “Animal, Vegetable, Mineral.”
Dragon, “Animal”
Bean, “Do we eat it?”
Dragon, “No”
Bean, “Does it have four legs or two?”
The Dragon will look at Dada in confusion. Dada, “I think four legs.”
Dragon, “It has wings and drinks blood.” (Darling, for some reason, after more than 2 or 3 questions, you always jump in with a huge hint.)
The Bean smiles hugely, “Is it a mosquito?”
Dragon, “YES! A squito!”
The Guess the Number game has changed the most since we started playing it a few months ago. It used to be that one player would have a number in their head between 0-20 and the other players would guess. The player with the number would say higher or lower and eventually the number would be revealed. Bean, with your math learnings, you have changed the whole equation.
First, you share the new rules, “Okay, so come up with a number between 0-50. Momma, do you have one?”
“Yes.”
“Is it an odd number?”
“Yes.”
“Does it have a 4 in it?”
“Yes.”
“Is it 41?” I nod no. “43?” I nod no. Your voice and face get more and more animated as you circle round the number and hone in on what it could be. “45?”
“YES! You did it! That is amazing! I love how you honed in on that so rapidly by using your noggin. Such good noggin work!”
It is incredibly impressive Bean to watch you use your math prowess to approach the numbers game in such a new way. I can see your neurons firing so bright and that is awesome.
This snapshot of our current life, so grateful I am for you both. Thank you for being my beloveds.
