How much should I intervene in the games of Uno my two young boys are playing? They are five and seven years old. You know what’s going on: seven year old cheats; five year old screams; thirty eight year old yells. Or: seven year old places down correct card; five year old cheats; seven year old cries; thirty eight year old yells, this time with more force.
For a while, I was going down there, using calm reasoning to move the game along. Then I moved along to frustrated sighs. I’m afraid then it became a fed-up raised voice. And now, I am just leaving them to it. One of the problems seems to be the list of convoluted rules they have invented (all with the aim of getting the most wild +4s in their hands).
What do you do? And joining in is not an option. Honestly, I’ve played more games of Uno and Twister this last week than I’ve played in my entire life. I’m limiting the number of games I play each day. For my own sanity.
UPDATE: it’s not urgent that you answer, they have moved along to a new game which involves running up and down the passage spitting at each other. If you need me I’m on the couch, whispering my constant refrain: they’ll never be teenage girls, they’ll never be teenage girls.
Burn the cards.
You know you want to…..
My brother and I once invented a great game which involved one of us wearing roller-skates and the other one tugging the wheeled one down the hall using a dressing gown cord. It was fun. Until I slammed into the laundry door at the end of the hall and broke my arm.
Frogdancer why didn’t I think of that? It’s so obvious now you say it. But then, where would it stop? The jackstraws, the twister, the battleships (ooooh, the battle ships)…
Oh, meli. Really? You really did break your arm? Perhaps it could be some consolation for you (and your mother who is probably still to this day cross with herself that that was the one she decided to let go and why didn’t she stop it, she knew she should stop it etc etc) that now I can say – with honesty – “I know someone broke their arm doing that”.
Try the ten year old boy and his little mates AND a teenage girl… ;-(
I’ll send my Oldest by, sometime this evening.
He’ll put an end to ALL OF IT.
yes, how bout the newly teenaged girl who sounds like a car-alarm AND the ten year old and his buddy.
In a tent.
In the rain.
yep, thats where I’m headed this week…..
I like the refrain ..
It’s at times like those that I LOVE my ipod. If you can’t hear the screams they’re not really happening.
And they won’t, is the good news.
I found teenage girl was not nearly as bad as me as a teenage girl!
Teenage boys are not so bad…