We try to do the same thing here at the castle at least once every two weeks. We play Pictionary, Scattergories, Boggle or Phase 10 (my personal favorite). The Queen (May She Let Me Win at Boggle) and the boys are quite skilled in all of these games. Although you would expect your humble King to emerge victorious over and over again, in reality victory is both rare and highly treasured.
Last Friday turned out to be a very memorable game night.
We started with a heated game of Pooh Memory, the choice of our 4-year-old (and did I mention darling?) little Princess. Eeyore tried to distract me the entire game, but I still managed to eke out a second place finish. This is quite good for a matching game when you consider my chronic coordination impediment. The winner was, obviously, the Queen (may her husband's tie match his shirt and slacks forever).
With the Princess off to bed, it was time for more serious fare - Kings in the Corners. The first game was over before it started. I won with my opening hand. The next game was as long as its predecessor was short. Holding onto a King for the entire game is a nefarious tactic, but Sun Tzu would definitely approve. I held more cards than anyone else, so they were all astonished when I managed to end the game with another victory.
At this point we retired to the couch for a few minutes of back-tickling before bed. All of my children love to have the Queen (May She Live Forever) lightly tickle their backs or their arms. (The King does not tickle for pleasure...only for torture.) They sit there in a dull stupor for as long as she tickles them. The house could catch fire and they would not notice. They would just sit there until the tickling stopped.
A few minutes into the tickling, the Architect had a suggestion; a very good suggestion. Remember the old party game called Gossip where the group sat in a circle and whispered a secret from person to person? When it got to the end, the result usually did not resemble the original secret. My son suggested we play a similar game. One person would pick an object and draw a picture of it on the next person's back. The message would travel down the couch via finger and the last person would try to guess what the object is.
This in concept sounds simple. In reality, it is very difficult to tell what is being drawn on your back. I was on the end of the couch (because I was not tickling anyone) so I started. The first object was easy - a Christmas Tree. I drew a large triangle, added a stump and then a star on the top. It went down the line quickly and each person knew exactly what had been drawn. The Artist started the next round but his Christmas stocking failed to make it past my lovely wife. Everyone tried to mimic what was drawn on their back, but none of us had any idea what the drawing actually was.
At this point we shuffled the couch to make it more interesting. The Architect drew something very strange on my back. It seemed to have lots of legs and then he ended with what felt like two antennae near what I visualized to be the object's head. In my mind, I thought "centipede" and proceeded to draw a similar myriapod on the lovely back of her Highness (May it Grace my Eyes Forever). She thought for a minute and then sketched her interpretation on the Artist's back. He paused and finally came up with "fire". My wife thought it was "grass". It turns out my guess of "centipede" was also incorrect. The original object was "cow".
We were all laughing so hard, that it was impossible to continue. We will be playing this again, but it does need a name...and Etch-a-Sketch is already taken. I'm open to ideas.
