Family Night

Tonight, like every Monday night, we attempted to gather as a family and enjoy each other's company. The problem was that everyone had a different idea of what we should do, so we tried to do them all. Andrew wanted to read children's books, Megan wanted to do a family relay race, Rachel wanted to complete her online registration for school, Alicia wanted to bake a cake, Rex didn't want to move, and I wanted to watch a movie.

We started with the relay race. We all followed Megan outside to listen to her indecisive instructions:
"First we'll skip to that tree--no, that one. Then we'll. Wait, first we'll hop to the tree then we'll skip back. No, we'll skip half way and then hop the rest of the way."
Rex wondered, "How will we know when we're halfway?"
Megan: "I don't know. I guess we'll just skip the whole way there and then hop the whole way back."

Andrew was the first skipper on his team and Alicia started the skipping on ours. When Alicia started winning, Andrew stopped and stormed away decrying skipping in general and competition and life itself. And he was never going to skip again or try to win ever again and this was all so stupid!

I took him by the hand and made him do it again anyway. He was happy with being given a bit of a head start as he had only learned how to skip a few minutes before. Alicia, of course, still won and Andrew became a bit sullen again. I didn't have time to talk to him, though, because I was suddenly I getting in trouble for aiding the other team instead of being in place to take my turn in the relay. I headed out and did my best, but once Rex was tagged by Rachel on the other team, he skipped and hopped like he was never gonna get a chance to hop and skip again. And their team won.

When I got back to Andrew, I congratulated him on trying and told him that it was more important to be involved than it was to win. Rex chimed in and said, "That's right, Andrew, winning's not important, but we did win. Now let's get out there and win again!"

Megan concocted two more silly relays including things like, sideways grape-vine running, running backwards, and touching one foot to the other as we walked. And the other team won all of them.

After exercising, we sat and watched the movie while Andrew read his children's books and Rachel and Megan made brownies to replace the calories we had expended.

Now all we have to do is register online and everyone will be happy.