Yes, I’d love to play…… with you

Yes, I’d love to play…… with you


Teenage terror had a mate over for the weekend just gone. A whole weekend, so they went beyond their usual x-box games, movies, soccer, and general teenage hanging out stuff they would do during a short term visit. And then I did the nasty mum thing… “please turn the x-box and tv off” for a while and find something else to do.”


Uh- oh – looks like the damage could be fatal. They are lost, they are miserable, they are wailing with the injustice of it all… They’ve got NOTHING to do, they’re bored, they don’t want to do x, y, or z because they’ve already done it or its too hot / cold / energetic / blah blah for them.


I suggest a game, monopoly?, cranium? No – too boring! How about some cards, perhaps…. OK, they’ve settled on cards. But will you play with us mum? It's much better with 3.


Will I play? Will I take out a few hours of my precious weekend to sit with some rowdy boys to play some game I probably don’t like and probably won’t understand their version of the rules and how they change constantly… well. Let’s see. I had planned to: clean the kitchen, do a load of laundry, go for a walk with the dog while the weather is nice, plant those peas before it rains, go to the gym, read my book, relax, socialise with grownups…. Hmmmm looks like I didn’t have anything important on. Who would’ve thought it?







Of course,YES - I’d love to play cards with you !!

So we play some cards – some games that I don’t particularly enjoy and then I teach them a new game (Switch - old fashioned UNO before they decorated the cards and wrote instructions on them). Wow – they love it! And I win !! Then I win again!! Don’t feel bad boys – I tell them, I am the switch playing champion of the world after all !! Aha!! The challenge is on. They start to work together (Cheats!) to do anything to beat me, to kill, me to "own" me!! And finally they do. Yay – success!

All are happy (even me – while nursing my now bruised ego).



Time to pack it up – we’ve got to .. (get dinner, go out, do x, y, z…)


What? No, let’s keep playing – they say. Pleeeeease.

And that is why I say yes to doing things that the kids want to do.. even when it’s not my first and natural choice to.

PS... I also say yes frequently to playing cricket (yuk), watching kid's TV and movies like - Ironman & Spiderman, playing X-box games (sometimes), playing monopoly, playing tennis, playing soccer, playing squash, swimming in the ocean, doing the obstacle course at the pool !, going into town, picking up friends, having kids over, visiting my family...etc  (btw  I don't necessarily not like all these things all the time...some of them I even do like !)