Candy Land

My mother has passed on many things to me over the years. A small list of them being her laugh, her wit, her love of writing, her love for over-doing special occasions, her "Snickers commercial behavior" when she is hungry, and her hatred of board games.

Oh, how I hate playing board games.

And oh, how my children absolutely love them.

The thing is, they don't seem like they love them when they are playing them. I used to watch those commercials that advertised family game nights, and everyone in them was laughing, and hugging, and involved---That is not what game time looks like in my house. 

 
Each child is arguing over what game we should play, what color game piece each person should have, who should get to go first--- And all that is before we start to define the winner and loser. That's when it gets really...special.

It's hard to play a game and know you are going to be the loser. In some games, it is revealed at the very beginning that you are just going to get stomped. I always make my kids play through to the finish line anyway, because I figure it teaches them lessons about being a gracious loser and never giving up. (Or maybe I just secretly wish that it sucks the fun out of board games so much that they won't want to play them anymore. *Practicing my evil laugh now*)

Then there are those games where it looks like you are going to do the stomping, but when you are mere spaces away from the finish line you get bumped back to the beginning.


I hate board games. But I LOATHE Candy Land.

Here you go, travelling along every child's fantasy world with your creepy gingerbread-kid pawn, getting stuck in ooey-gooey gumdrops and sliding down ice cream ski slopes until you reach King Kandy's castle (whom I can only assume is the widower of the Hansel and Gretel witch.) 

Sometimes you make it through the lollipop forest with nary a scratch. But usually, (because this is the pure evil of the game,) you find yourself four spaces away in need of the double yellow and BAM! You get the cupcake card. Back to the beginning you go.

Now, I have two younger children, so I pretty much start this game each and every time with a prayer that I am the one that will wind up with said cupcake card. But apparently, God also wants my babies to learn lessons about being gracious losers and never giving up...


Lord knows it is a lesson I am still learning myself.

Before our first Army move out of central Texas, I was a substitute teacher with dreams of becoming a classroom teacher. That career goal has shifted slightly over the years along with our address. But five years later, I find myself back in central Texas fresh out of a substitute teaching job.
As much as I hate to say it, it's hard not to feel like I got the cupcake card.

Now I don't know if any of you readers out there are as fortunate as I am and have had the opportunity to study up on exactly what the cupcake card represents.
Well, chin up because today is your lucky day!
The cupcake card takes you to the Cupcake Commons, where you get to decorate cupcakes and take bicycle rides on the candy trail. Sounds nice, doesn't it? Now sure, it might not be quite as exciting as snowboarding down an ice cream mountain, but it is still good, wholesome fun.

Sometimes getting booted back to start isn't all that bad. (Maybe it's not as exciting as skiing down the Austrian Alps, but it's central Texas, for Pete's sake! So it's still pretty darn good!)

Even so, it's hard not to wonder why with all of the cards in the deck, you ended up with the cupcake.

Sometimes we get sent back to start so we can learn to be gracious losers and never give up. Sometimes we get sent back to start as an opportunity to redo the things that we whirred past the first time. And sometimes we get sent back to start to re-evaluate where we've been and discover how to blaze new trails.

Something tells me my cupcake card is due to a combination of the three. Only time will tell.

Meanwhile, I have discovered the reason that I continue to suffer through these horrible board games with my children is because they look like this when I tell them I will play with them:


And even with my cupcake card, these two make me feel like a winner.

The Bubble

My family and I are not what people may consider very high-tech. We have no Internet on our phones. No tablets. No portable gamers. We have a very basic cable package, which has become even more basic since moving to the country. (Did you know there is still a scrolling TV Guide Channel?!?) We have one family computer that we all share--and yes, even the three-year-old gets his turn at the computer each day.

We had our homepage set to Yahoo, but with the recent events of the world today, my husband and I decided that the graphic imagery was too accessible to our little ones during computer time. We have since reset our homepage to Disney Jr. As if I already didn't know enough about what was going on in the real world...well, now I know even less.

But I have always enjoyed living with a little bit of ignorance. It's not that I don't like to feel educated. It's just that I don't have a need to know everything. And I certainly don't feel compelled to know it all the instant it happens--complete with live streaming coverage.


Maybe this makes me naive...but it makes me happy.
Maybe this makes me vulnerable...but it makes me happy.
Maybe this makes me oblivious...but it makes me happy.

And it makes me wonder:
Is it this ignorance that gives me bliss, or is it that I already know the ending to the story?

It's easy to get caught up in the worries of the world via the news sources. Our resources are being depleted. The polar icecaps are melting. The nation is broke. World leaders are corrupt. New wars are beginning. Wars that have been fought for centuries are still going on. Hate. Greed. Lust. Loss. Death. (And don't even get me started on the Kardashians...)

And in spite of it all, if I can look past the headlines to see through the haze of smoke that the earth is bellowing out, I see victory. I see good news. I see a new world.

I am not putting myself in a bubble. I have simply already put on my armor.

The Outmode

I stood behind the kitchen counter wiping remnants of play-doh bits off of the surface of the counter and into the trash can. My son sat happily on the sofa watching a show, quiet and content. I realized in that moment that if this had been three years ago, the scenario would have looked much different...

My then three-year-old would have left the same play-doh mess for me to clean, but the baby would not have let me put him down to do so. The little bits would have either been picked up at the end of the day or not at all, eventually finding their way onto the floor and ground into the carpet fibers where I would forget about them altogether---until a few weeks down the road when a spilled cup of juice would resurrect them.

Now that three-year-old is in the first grade, and on most occasions is perfectly capable of drinking things without spilling it everywhere. That baby that never wanted to be put down takes himself away from the "Mommy and Me Play-doh Date" and sits on the couch to let me clean. I remember three-years-ago-me dreaming about this day...now I don't want it.

The problem with being a "stay-at-home-mom" is that eventually your kids don't stay at home with you anymore. With any luck, they will become independent and competent, and in the process render you completely useless (or so it seems.) When I would fill out forms with a baby on my hip and a toddler dangling from my leg, I remember never hesitating to write down my current occupation. I wrote it in all caps. STAY AT HOME MOM. It was a job!

Those days I would have been lucky to stop working long enough to take a shower. Today, not only have I showered (which I'm sure you're glad to know,) but I have also cleaned the bathrooms, mopped the floors, dropped my daughter off at school, played at the playground with my son, played 3 rounds of board games and an hour of play-doh, and was able to make an important phone call. (Not to mention compose a blog in the middle of the afternoon.) Three-years-ago-me can't believe that I am able to get so much done in a day. But nowadays-me knows better. I would be lying if I said I work a fraction as hard as I used to. Both of my kids are potty-trained. Both of my kids sleep through the night. I only have to dress them about half of the time. Most days they have no problem entertaining each other or themselves. I have a lot more free time on my hands. And rather than feeling blessed by the free time like I thought I would, I feel like I've been laid off of a job.

I usually have a pretty solid point by the time I finished composing one of these, but this time I'm not sure I know exactly what it's supposed to be yet.

Maybe for the mom with the babies and the play-doh smeared on your countertops and in your carpet, it's: Hang in there. This too shall pass.

Maybe for the mom who is getting ready to send their first child off to school, it's: Relish the feeling of being needed.

Maybe for the working mother, it's: Be sure to write your occupation in all caps...because some of us are jealous of your job.

And maybe for the rest of us with clean houses and no jobs and babies off at school or quietly entertaining themselves on the couch, it's: Exhale. And rather than beat yourself up for the work you don't think you're doing now, pat yourself on the back for the hard work you already did. And are still doing, only now in a more timely fashion.
Thank the Lord.