“Want to play a board game, Sammy?”
“All I have is Candyland and the board is missing, Daddy.”
OK, I have been a delinquent father; my son has no board games. He has a Wii, he plays on my computer, he has a pool, a dog, a cool bicycle, a Razor scooter, and the use of a 60” HD widescreen TV on which he watches Spongebob. But no board games. No Life, Risk, Hungry-Hungry Hippos. Nada.
My wife and I own Scrabble, though. It’s the deluxe version that has a plastic grid to hold tiles. Perhaps he’d like to play this?
“DADDY I LOVE SCRABBLE!”
He’s never even *seen* Scrabble.
We pop out the board – which is on a turntable; how smart I was to buy this! – on my bed, with the tiles and the wooden tile holders, discretely tossing the scorepad away.
“Here’s your seven tiles, and I’ll take seven…”
“DADDY! Is QUITZLY a word?”
I’m playing Scrabble with Bart Simpson.
“No, but let’s use the letter E on the board to make a word. Can you make a word with that E, and your M and N?”
“MEN!”
“Very good! Put the pieces on the board. Now, can you count your points?”
And a flurry of little finger-counting action later, “THREE!”
“That’s awesome, kid-o!”
“Do I get three pieces?”
“No.”
“How many do I get?”
“You used two pieces, so take two more.”
And he opened the bag and started searching, a clear violation of Scrabble rules.
“No, Sam-o, you can’t look in the bag.”
“But I need a U for my Q!”
My six year old knows his Q-rule. He may search the bag; I’m so proud.
“OK, you can look in the bag.”
“CAN I DUMP IT OUT!?”
Why do boys scream everything? And as long as I was letting him search the bag, it made sense to just dump it out on the bed.
“Yes, you may dump it out, just NOTONTHECAT!”
The cat ran. My son laughed. The dog barked. I sighed.
“OK, let’s use that E again. With your Q and your U, can you make a word with that E?”
“Um…”
“How about, queen?”
“QUEEN DADDY! I can make the word QUEEN!”
“Excellent! Now how many points is that?”
“FIVE!”
“No no, see the number on the letter Q? That’s worth ten points. Can you add all the points?”
My son is a furious finger-counter, and eventually…
“FOURTEEN POINTS! Am I winning?”
“Of course you’re winning.”
“I AM A WINNER AND YOU ARE NO-OT!”
“Be nice, Sammy.”
“OK. Can I have a drink, please?”
“Not on my bed.”
“BUT DADDY I’M SO THIRSTY!”
“Go get a drink in the kitchen and come back.”
“Ok.”
As he crashed the fridge in search of G2 – the boy likes weak Gatorade – I looked at his collection of tiles. All consonants. With the skill of a CIA spy master, I covertly swapped his Ks and Js for a few Es and As.
“DADDY DON’T TOUCH MY PIECES!”
“Sam, I’m giving you better pieces.”
“Is it my turn again?”
“Yes. See, I made the word CAR.”
“I WANNA MAKE THE WORD BOOGERS!”
Of course you do. “You don’t have two Os. How about you put a letter S on the end of the word car. What word is that?”
“CARS! That’s FOUR POINTS!”
“Very good!”
“Daddy, may I please have two pieces of raisin bread toast with butter and blueberry waffles with butter and syrup and a glass of milk?”
“It’s lunch-time, kid-o. Don’t you want lunch?”
“No thank you. I’d like raisin bread toast and waffles.”
“You may have either toast or waffles, but not both.”
“BUT I’M SO HUNGRY DADDY I’M GONNA DIE!”
“You’re not gonna die…”
“I’M SO HUNGRY!”
“Sam, I’m going to make you some waffles, but no toast. I want you to practice Scrabble, OK?”
“OK Daddy. Thank you.”
Waffles made and placed on the kitchen bar, I instructed my son that lunch – such as it is – was ready.
“DADDY COME SEE WHAT I DID! I MADE SQUARES!”
And sure enough, he had made three-letter words into 3×3 squares on the Scrabble board.
“That’s great! But AGT isn’t a word…”
“DADDY IT’S YOUR TURN!”
“Alright, now I’ll make…”
“THOSE ARE MY PIECES!”
“Well you *took* all my pieces. How is it supposed to be my turn if I don’t have pieces?”
And he began to think. The solution was, of course, simple.
“I’LL GO *FOR* YOU DADDY!”
“OK, what word are you going to make?”
“DeluxeScrabble.”
“Well, that’s two words…”
“TWO WORDS PUT TOGETHER IS A COMPOUND WORD DADDY!”
“A compound word is two words put together to make an entirely new word. Clubhouse is a compound word.”
“So is firehouse!”
“Very good!”
“And racetrack!”
“Excellent!”
“I’M GOING TO SPELL DELUXESCRABBLE DADDY! How do you spell deluxe?”
“D…”
“I’m hungry; I’m going to eat my waffles.”
“And Don’t take any Scrabble pieces with you.”
“AwwwWWW!”
As he ran to lunch, the Scrabble pieces fell on the floor; they were down his pants.
That is so freakin cute :3
Okay, that does it, my guild can find another healer tonight. I’m playing Dora The Explorer with my daughter.
Hehehe Gotta love quality time with the kids I am looking forward to when The Girl is old enough to spell scrabble is very competitive in my family. She needs a head start in training.
Good Day Daniel
I think you need to remove the Out Of Mana link , for it is no more , Megan has quit the game as well, I guess Another one bite the dust eh….
Haha
This rules. You’ve certainly lost none of that comedic touch when you moved away from BRK.net.
Keep it up! You have another regular reader (out of the millions you already have) here
Haha great story Daniel! Reminds of the adventures of my little nephews
Btw If it said AGI instead of AGT in the square… would you count that legitimate
?
I have twin girls that just turned 7 and Scrabble has been an adventure for us for a while now. “Daddy she has better letters than me!” “Daddy she played her word where I wanted to play mine!” “Daddy I was going to spell that word you just did…can you spell a different one, please?” OMG she said “please.” I’ll do damn near anything for the child that says “please.”
Great read. Thanks again.
My little fella, Odin (no note Gnome jnr) may be a bit shy of 3, but I see all those joyfully annoying traits in him too.
It blows me away on a daily basis how they can turn the simplest of things into an entirely new game. There may be rules printed on the side of a box, but they mean nothing to an imaginative child… must do my best to never disuade him from that idea.
aww super cute
Great read, as always, Daniel.
This made me smile and got me thinking about the good ol’ days when I was young and playing Scrabble with my family!
P.S “Agt” is a word – it means “eight” in Afrikaans, my mother tongue here in South Africa.
How adorable! Kids are so fascinating… well, when they are young and not being influenced by brats at school ;P I kid, I kid.
So proud of you Daniel, we sure miss you.
Love your blog
laughed hard. The world (of warcraft) misses you, but its good to see your still an active blogger.
I managed to make my way here from http://www.bigredkitty.net/ and I must say, you know how to write and what could be better to write about than ones kids? Real life is a blast when you know how to live it. I salute you for spending time with your son rather than playing World of Warcraft.
I have been reading your posts regularly. I need to say that you are doing a fantastic job. Please keep up the great work.