Games We Play

Kids are really fascinating. I have found that I don't realize that they couldn't do something until suddenly they acquire the skill.

For example, Claire is starting to develop a sense of humour and an ability to play simple games. I guess I shouldn't be surprised at this as she has also recently become more abstract and logical and less egocentric. We can talk hypothetically now where we couldn't do that before. We can also talk about cause and effect and not have her glaze over completely. For the most part, these things have made her easier to live with. She's going to be a proper Vulcan when she grows up. I do admit her thinking breaks down sometimes, even though I can usually still wrap my mind around her four-year-old logic. Like the night when she told her father she was crying because she lost her bear due to misbehaviour and how he had to give her bear back so she would stop crying so she could hear the story she was going to make him tell.

Back to games...I think that with addition of all of these cognitive skills come the ability to think about rules, turn taking, how other people might act and that people can't read your mind. When you realize your mind is not open to other folks, you can start to play games and crack jokes. It's that simple.

Now, don't forget that we also have a littler person in this house who does not, in any way, have any of these cool skills. No wonder they've been fighting so much lately. It's really exhausting. The two of them just don't speak the same language and we see it most when they try to play games:

- Hide and Seek: Claire will hide and be quiet and we will seek or she will hide her eyes properly and count and then seek patiently. Jillian will run off, sing to herself, announce where she is and pop out of her spot like a rabbit. If she is seeking, she will singsong "Wherrrrrrrre areeeeeeee youuuuuuuuu?" without really looking for anyone. This drives Claire bananas.

- I Spy: Claire will say "I spy with my little eye something that is yellow" and keep the answer to herself patiently while we guess at all the yellow things we can see. Jillian will say "I spy with my little eye something yellow and it is that picture of a duck over on the fridge" and then look at you as if waiting for you to guess. This drives Claire bananas.

- Jokes: Claire tries to tell Knock, Knock jokes all the time. She's pretty bad at it but will laugh at her own attempts or laugh at us even if she doesn't get the joke (speaking of which...if you know a good Knock, Knock joke, how about writing it out in the comments - we realized last night that we don't know many). Jillian doesn't even bother with the jokes but Claire tries, in vain, to get her to understand the idea. This drives Claire bananas.

- Which Hand?: This is a game that Carolyn at the yarn store started with Claire one day a while back with a piece of candy. She hid the candy in one hand and Claire had to pick a hand and when she found the candy she could have it. She was fascinated by it and made Carolyn hide the candy over and over and over again. Since then, she'll occasionally play with one of us. Often at inappropriate times. Last night was one of those times. The girls were eating sugar snap peas and naan bread and hummus and Claire kept hiding bits of her bread in her hand and making us guess. It was funny because we could see her trying to fool us and she would almost get upset if we picked the right hand. She even tried pulling 'do overs' on us if we picked the hand with the bread. We were getting a nice little chuckle out of her. Suddenly, we heard a little voice say "which hand?" and looked at Jillian to see this:


Ummmm...I dunno Jilla...in which hand are you hiding your sugar snap pea?

She did this over and over and over with DH picking the right hand every single time. By the end we were laughing so hard I'm amazed we managed to stay on the chairs. She never did wonder why he was so good at it and she would have done it till bedtime if we'd let it go on that long. It was cute. It was even cuter that she continued to do it for me while I took her picture even though I was almost paralyzed with laughter at the time.

In case that wasn't entertaining, here's last night's belly photo for your amusement:

Only 11ish days to go. I'm pretty sure this is bigger than I ever got with the girls. It scares me a little. Especially since a friend of mine who had a 6 pound baby girl two years ago gave birth to a 9 pound baby girl on Sunday. If this kid is 9+ pounds I might not survive the delivery. I think I'd better go eat a few Easter cookies to keep my mind off of it.