I sat on the gangway steps between Big Ed's house and Zelda's. Our kids, and Auggie and his sister Kendall, were playing Red Light Green Light. A version I didn't know--it involved a walking-only yellow light option. Noah kept "slipping" on the concrete every time a caller said red light. Sure. Fiona got sent back. Daisy and Kendall got sent back. Daisy and Kendall had minor temper tantrums down by the parked cars. No one really won.
Then they switched to duck-duck-goose, the circle game where a caller walks around the circle, tapping each participant's head and saying "duck". Duck, duck, duck, duck, and then finally taps a head and says "goose!" The goose has to get up and chase the caller around the circle, trying to tag her, and if he can't, he becomes the new caller. If he can, the old caller goes into the middle (alternately called many things--we always called it the mush pot but the kids here, I think, were referring to it somehow as where a roast goose would go. Can't recall the name if they gave it one). The game is simple and is best played with an entire kindergarten's worth of children, enough to really get up and run and tag. With 7 kids sitting knee-to-knee, it didn't work as well.
At one point Daisy wound up falling down the hill onto the sidewalk, in perhaps the most dramatic pratfall in the history of drama. Arguments ensued about who had been tagged. Fiona cut through the middle to tag Bree. Auggie threw grass in Daisy's face.
It was the worst duck-duck-goose game I'd ever witnessed. I gave my girls 5 minutes. Time to go inside.
"But moooooooooom," Fiona whined. "It's so nice out!"
"Too bad. It'll be nice at midnight but we won't be outside then, either." Gah, I'm such a MOM.
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