A Visit From The H-Men (part 2)
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
There are certain things that we, as parents, just kind of can't stand to do with our children. And its different for everyone, I'm sure. For me, its teaching my daughter how to play games.
Eleanore loves to play games. Duh. What 4 year old doesn't? And I love to play games with her. I just... hate to teach her how to play games. Partially because I know that once I get through all of the telling and retelling and retelling and retelling of the rules, and after I pretend to lose and then have to hear her rub it in my face how awesome she is- shes going to want to play that game all the time, everyday, from now until the world ends.
She'll ask me if we can play Silly Sentences, and no matter what my answer is, even if I'm literally walking to the closet to pull it down off of the shelf for her, she'll ask me again. If I tell her no, if I tell her yes, if I tell her that the ice cream man suddenly carries sugar free soy ice cream and is driving down the street throwing them at little girls with cute short haircuts... she'll still ask me again.
Something awesome though, about having family come to visit, is thats the kind of stuff that they love to do. Thats the kind of stuff that my family used to do with me, and thats the kind of stuff that our family seems to be loving to do with her.
Elie was begging to play something, anything, and then out of nowhere Uncle Josh says "sure, I'll play a game with you, whatdya want to play?".
Oh God, stars lit up in her eyes, fireworks went off between her and the ceiling.
Game on.
After he taught her how to play Old Maid with a deck of Dora cards that had been hidden away on the shelf above the DVDs in the downstairs closet, they busted out some Memory. And seriously, when you're four years old, Memory is a way of life.
And of course, 5 minutes after they were finished, she was asking to play again.
While that was going on, I was working my toddler free tail off in the kitchen, frying up an entire mountain of catfish for everyone to feast upon.
Random fact: I had fried catfish for the first time just a few months ago. My life will never be the same again. Batter, fry, repeat.
After we filled our bellies with cornmeal dusted seafood, we all wandered outside for some fresh air, toe touching, and beard growing. The kids loved having people to climb on and chase, and before we knew it, we were racing the sunset to the basketball courts...
Eleanore fell in love with Miss Christl. She wanted to walk beside her, hold her hand, sit in her lap and purr like a kitten.
While the ladies were hanging out on the sidelines, the H-men tore up the court.
It was pretty awesome, to see them out there tripping over themselves, all with the same matching awkward sasquatch-like movements. Baskets were rarely made, but when they were, it was a big deal.
They would have stayed out there much longer had the sun not ducked out of sight, but leftover cookies from the night before were calling their last name from the fridge, so like sweaty zombies, they marched back to the house, and we all settled down in front of the television for a movie.
Oh, Me and Evelyn were there too. Christopher captured proof on the walk over. This is the only picture of me from the whole trip.
By the way. That one movie, about the robot airplanes rocket ship arc... sky captain and the world of tomorrow, or something? ...I don't so much recommend it.
