"Children are never more serious than when they play." - Montaigne

March 18, 2009


candyland
Originally uploaded by jmacphoto.com

My son has become obsessed with Candyland.

He's 2 1/2 now (well, more than 2 1/2 I guess ... how time flies!) and the matching games we were playing were boring him. So I picked up a cheap copy of Candyland, and over the weekend we introduced him to it. Now every night after supper the begging for a movie has been replaced with "I want to play the game! I want to play the game!". So out comes the box and off we go.

I'm fascinated, though, by his rules. He understands that the little men must walk on the path, and the counting colors and that, but he feels - strongly - that we must all keep together. When one player gets behind, he'll become very concerned, and will attempt to give his next cards to that player so the left-behind one can catch up. Or, sometimes, he'll decide he's going backwards on the path, to make sure that no one is left behind.

We should probably teach him to play "The Rules" but we can't bring ourselves to, yet. After all, he's right - no one should be left behind. We should go back and pick up those who have fallen behind on the path. And, when we get to the end, we should all join hands and go skating.

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