All of our grandsons and one granddaughter spent the night recently. Mom and dad took the other granddaughters on an adventure in downtown Oklahoma City for the newly-minted 19year-old's birthday and I am exhausted.
Have you ever been to a fish farm, tossed in a handful of food, and watched all the fish swarm to get their share of the prize? Well, it was kind of like that Friday night and all day Saturday.
They arrived, en masse, Friday afternoon ready to challenge Nana to endless games I should have never taught them to play. The little stinkers cut me no slack. Of course, I never did cut them any either. In this house, you win or you lose. I have found I'm not a very good loser so it's good for me to be reminded of that fact. That's what I tell myself anyway. Myself just snaps back, 'Who the heck likes to lose as a lesson in life? Not me, boy.' Myself is a snot sometimes.
Anyway, as soon as the boys stashed their gear, and by stashed I mean tossed it all willy-nilly, smack dab into the middle of my office door, they were ready for the games to begin. I played checkers with the 9-year-old and the soon-to-be 6-yearold. It's pretty much the only game I can beat them at. They are both whizzes at the matching game, so my ego takes a hit there. I did beat the 9-year-old a couple of times, but I think he was sick, so we won't mention that one.
The oldest, who is nearly blind, loves to play the card game Skip-Bo. Since he can't really 'see' the numbers well, I help him play his cards, and more often than not, he beats me. That's what I get for being honest, haha. Since it's his favorite game, I ordered some Braille cards from our favorite online big box store. I've been working with him to learn what each number is on the cards so maybe someday I won't need to help him. I'm not above using bribery to get him to learn the numbers so he's really trying, and I sure hope someday I can beat him when he plays his cards by himself, but probably not. He's pretty good.
I made the mistake of teaching a few of the older kids to play one of my favorite card games, Phase 10. That was a mistake. Even the 9-year-old beats me at this one. Not always, mind you, but often enough to be a danger to my confidence. The one thing I did do with both these card games is remove the skips. It just leaves people feeling upset when they get 'skipped' so that's out. I guess that explains why I dislike games that are inherently oriented to 'taking out' your opponent. I made the mistake of telling the 9-year-old he could put his pieces on one space in Parcheesi and build an impassable wall. He did it as soon as we started the game, and my ugly side reared its head. I let him know I was 'out for blood' now. The truth was I wasn't, but he didn't know that. That's just not how I roll. I'm too much of a pussy cat, but don't tell them. I need my sympathy card to use whenever I can to get them to take it easy on poor little old me.
The game closet is stuffed so full of games for all ages that if I buy one more, David's going to have a conniption. Seriously. Besides buying games, I have also been trying to find a card shuffler that works. I had one years ago, and it finally quit so I ordered a new one. Then I ordered another one, etc., etc. My sweet family gave me a nice one last Christmas and it works well-so far. It came with instructions on what to do if it quits, which was a good thing. I finally tried organizing the game closet so all the games would fit and found 10! Count, 'em 10! card shufflers. I knew I'd been replacing them frequently, but I never dreamed it was that many. One of these days, when I'm bored and get tired of watching old sitcoms, I plan on using the instructions to repair the ones that are now stacked in my office. It's no wonder I didn't have room for the games. That many shufflers take up a lot of room.
In the meantime, I'll keep on my quest to find a challenging game that the darn grandkids won't master and beat me at my own game after playing it once. I'm open to suggestions.