One night before dinner, the kids and Karen were playing a new game in the kitchen. Karen would close her eyes and the kids would attempt to run by her, gleefully yelling, “Tickle me, tickle me!”, as she grabbed blindly for them, with a surprising degree of success. Actually, it wasn’t so surprising because they would essentially run as close as possible to her.
Things got a little crazy (they started running right at Karen and bumping into each other), so I proposed a slightly more controlled version of the game: essentially red rover, two lines on either side of the kitchen, someone on one side would call out the name of someone on the other side, who would run over and get tickled.
We played this game briefly, until Charlotte declared, “Stop! I have a more better game.” She turned to me to emphasize, “Dad, it’s a more better game than yours.”
She then launched into a complicated explanation that began with, “It’s like ‘Get Me!’ but…,” followed by a bunch of convoluted parameters about who could be ‘gotten, where, and when.”
And than the directions got really convoluted and involved something about kids grabbing onto the back of the shirts of the adults. Luke attempted to act it out as Charlotte ‘explained,’ which resulted in Luke basically trying to climb up my back underneath my shirt.
While fun and entertaining, it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Karen and I weren’t sure of what we were supposed to do, asking questions in an attempt to understand.
Apparently, frustrated by our inability to grasp the simple concepts of her new, more better game, Charlotte decided to revert to the original game, because she then described that game, prompting Karen to question, “Isn’t that the game we were just playing?”
To which Charlotte responded excitedly, “Yes!”, and then both kids started running around again yelling, “Tickle me, tickle me!”
A more better game indeed. I guess I just shouldn’t have messed with a good thing.
I hope you enjoyed today’s serving of ‘mac & cheese.’
