As parents we feel compelled to orchestrate quality family together time as much as possible. You know, build those lovely warm memories into the chaos of everyday life. We often feel like we’re falling down on the job if we’re not carving out time between school projects, soccer games and gymnastics meets to enjoy a solid chunk of uninterrupted time together.
So, if you’re like me, you realize that you haven’t had any family time in an embarrassingly long time and you thus
Author Katie Mardigian and one of her little gamers.
abruptly declare that TONIGHT WILL BE FAMILY GAME NIGHT.
That’s right, people! Tonight is the night we’re going to have some good ol’ fashioned relaxing family board game time. We are going to turn off the iPhones, the iTouches, the iWhatevers and we are going to create some solid family memories up in here!
After a very democratic family vote (which of course makes me feel like I’ve got this Family Time thing in the bag) we pull out Scrabble. I’m thinking, “Bonus! I will enjoy Family Game Night while also helping my kids work on their spelling and vocabulary! That’s got to be like extra credit in the uncannily unwinnable game that is Parenting!”
Everyone gathers their 7 tiles and prepares to play. Even the 3 year old has a role; she is the Official Tile Replacement Manager. I marvel at my ability to incorporate her in spite of her complete inability to either spell or take turns. We put some music on, a little multi-generationally appropriate Jason Mraz, and we kick off the game…
Cut to 10 minutes later.
It’s as if I’m playing with a bunch of fraternity boys. Fraternity boys on uppers. There’s an unnecessary amount of potty jokes. (Thanks to the infinite possibilities afforded by Scrabble. Seriously, apparently when you’re 9 years old, the Scrabble world is your dirty oyster.) Actual Scrabble playing is sidelined by intermittent wrestling. (These are all girls, mind you, except for my husband who can’t help himself but get involved and I can’t blame him because the poor guy has three girls and zero boys, so when one of his girls wants to wrestle, I let it be.) The volume of this Scrabble game, which typically should be at about a 7 even in a rousing game, is at an off-the-chart 19.
The Tile Replacement Manager completely sucks at her job because she keeps trying to force ‘FLPMN’ on the board while also demanding to watch Super Why. I’m pretty sure she’s hoarding tiles but I don’t bring it up.
At some point my husband mentions that it would be easier to play with a bunch of circus monkeys.
I keep yelling random Mom Things like, “Does anyone here want to play Scrabble?!”and “If you can’t focus then we’ll just put the game away!” but nobody cares. Because apparently Family Game Night is not so much an enjoyable group game experience as it is a time for our family members to gather together and be their usual ridiculous selves around a board game.
So big lesson learned: Just because you put a board game in front of your kids and declare that this will be a night of warm family memories, does not make it so.
But, in all my stress about making this quality family time, and with all the ways in which it didn’t turn out as planned, boy did I laugh. When the 7 year old tried to play ‘OUT’ on the existing ‘TUNA’ because, “you know, when you’re out of tuna”… and when the 3 year old did the jump-splits just to get everyone’s attention and then had the immediate look of “what the hell did I just do?!”… and when the 9 year old put a Scrabble tile on her eye like an eye patch and said, “Arggh, Matey”… I laughed my ass off.
Because our kids are who they are – inappropriately, beautifully, authentically so – no matter what our plans are. And that’s better than what I had planned anyway.
