Sometimes it’s just hard to connect as a family, especially as the kids get older and interests grow. They begin to spend more time outside of the home rather than inside. Sometimes I miss those days when everything revolved around mom and dad.
Well, we try to connect and make memories by having “Game Night” as much as possible. A little sporadic, sometimes haphazard, but always proves to be memorable. Only two basic rules; no electronic devices and everyone must participate. Candyce my daughter absolutely loves it. My son, Carlisle, well not so much.
My daughter came to me one evening and said, “Hey Mom, can we play a game together?” Of course, I said, “Yes!” Okay, really I was DOG tired, had a thousand other things on my mind and quite frankly I didn’t want to play! But, being the dutiful mother that I am (really?) I said, “Of course love. Get your brother and Dad and lets play.”
As usual, my son was nonchalant about playing. He was more interested in his DS and making it to the next level in the quest. That’s the only game he wanted to play. My husband was tired and said so, but gave in because he could see that Candyce really wanted this time together.
The game I love is Scrabble and I try to play it EVERY time we get together. Of course, I mentioned it and Candyce readily agreed. Can we say a bit selfish? Why yes, sometimes I am! It’s also my secret way of engaging the kids, yet still sneaking in an educational component! (insert big sly smile).
We started playing. As usual, the order was oldest to youngest. Dad always likes to go first.
While the game got underway we talked about the movie Descendants 2, which if you didn’t know is a Disney musical/movie about pirates of some sort whose parents were Disney characters, ( I had no clue).
Nonetheless, we chatted away about the mother of particular characters. Candyce started telling me that Maleficent was one of the character’s mothers. Carl told us another character was the son of Jafar from Aladin, along with other villains I can’t quite remember.
Candyce started telling us that Maleficent used a magic spinning wheel to make Princes Aurora sleep. I chimed in and said, “Oh yes, that’s the Rumplestiltskin story. I used to tell you that one all the time. The little girl could spin gold or something and she was stolen…right?”
Candyce and Carl looked at me and began laughing hysterically! My husband tried to back me up with my tale, which was apparently twisted. The kids laughed even more!
“No mom, no mom! That’s not the story. You’ve got it wrong. Rumplestiltskin is the little man who came to help a young girl whose father told the king that his daughter could spin straw into gold. Rumplestilskin came to help her do what her father said she could do a few times. The last time she promised her first born to him. Rumplestilskin came to collect on the promise. But felt sorry for her, so he gave her three days to guess his name. That’s the story mom! You don’t remember?”
“Uhm, of course, I do!” Really, I can barely remember my name some days. Dad just agreed and said something about her hair being golden locks or something. But I have to say we laughed and just keep telling the stories we remembered. Of course, the stories my husband and I told were a little mangled. We remember somebody eating an apple and getting kissed or something happening to some lady with long hair…oh yes…Rapunzel. Yes, of course, we remember. It’s all flooding back now. It was but like a flood with all the debris mixed in with the water making it a menagerie of tales!
I could go on and on but in the end, does the story matter??? The answer is unequivocally, No! We had an amazing night of funny stories, great Scrabble words and connecting on a level that had absolutely no worries, no cares, and no electronic devices. EVERYONE was engaged, telling stories and laughing. Now the kids inside joke is, “Mom, Dad tell us about Rumplestiltskin again!”
It was one of those nights we don’t get so much as our kids are becoming older. It felt so good and I just want to hold on tight to nights like this one.
Candace Beach has been married to Ralph Beach for 15 years and they have a blended family that consists of 2 boys, Ralph Jr. (34) and Carlisle (14), as well as 2 girls named Barbara-Ann (26) and Candyce (13), YIKES! She sees motherhood as ever changing, like the gift that keeps on giving, Sometimes heartache and other times great joy!
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