Sometimes I have to think long and hard about what to write about. Other times, it’s easy peasy, like last Friday night when Riley invented his first drinking game.
It started as a matching game (except it’s not a matching game at all). Here’s how it works: We place a dozen small books about different farm, zoo, and sea animals on the floor face down. Then, we take turns giving clues about one of the animals. Whoever guesses the animal gets to flip the book over.
Like most bedtime activities (brushing teeth, going pee, and choosing one – not ten – books to read), the matching game is exhausting, especially when my patience is thin and my Chinese takeout is sitting on the kitchen counter. That said, it is, on occasion, entertaining. Here’s a sampling of some of Riley’s most awesome animal clues:
This guy is a fuzzy little fella with a yucky mouth.
This guy is a fuzzy little fella who smells.
This mean guy has sharp teeth and scares everyone and eats meat.
We’ve been playing the matching game every night for at least two hundred years weeks. On Friday night, I tried to redirect him. Let’s read a book? I promise I’ll read more than one. You can choose! Fugetaboutit. “No,” he said. “We’re playing.”
Then things got interesting. “Mommy, where’s your water? We have to do water drink.”
“What’s water drink?” I asked.
“Every time you guess an animal you get to drink water!” he said holding up his Batman cup.
Hmm. It was eight o’clock on a Friday night. I imagined all of the young, hip, sharply dressed, non-parent people enjoying happy hour specials around town. “Is it okay if Mommy drinks a glass of wine?”
“Sure it is.”
And so began the drinking game.
“This guy is a fuzzy little fella who likes to splash in the water and play with everyone,” said Riley.
“Dolphin?” I guessed.
“Water Drink!” he said. Nice.
“Okay, my turn. This animal lives on a farm and likes to eat grass all day.”
This somewhat accurate description of a cow threw Riley for a loop, which wasn’t a surprise considering his description of a horse a few minutes earlier was “a fuzzy little fella who likes to bark. “Cow?” he finally guessed.
“Yes!”
“Water Drink!” Sweet.
The “Go The F—k To Sleep” guy could probably learn a thing or two from me about how to make bedtime a little bit less miserable. You’ll be pleased (relieved?) to know there’s an educational component to this (inappropriate?) bedtime drinking game. Every time we make a match (and after we take a swig), we open the book and learn something factual about an animal. Did you know tigers like to hunt alone? That pandas like to sleep in trees? That sharks don’t lay eggs, rather they keep them inside until the babies hatch? That black bears aren’t all black?
Expect the unexpected, my friends. And, by golly, WATER DRINK!!!
Do you play drinking games with your kids?
Editor’s note: No animals fuzzy little fellas were harmed and no one under the age of 21 37 consumed Chardonnay in the making of this blog post.
The Runaway Mama by Jen Gregory 