Playing Azul, Uno and Chatting

"Can we play one more game, Grandmother?"

Tonight, I played Azul and Uno with my grandchildren.

I chat as we play.

Sometimes I chat.

Today I yelled.

When too many hands get into the tile pile and I can’t tell which hand is hitting which other hand and sending the tiles spilling all over, that is when I yell.

That was a surprise to them.

In 8 years I have never raised my voice. But I can’t have one set of hands taking over before another set of hands has finished and I had exhausted all of the other ways I know to tell them that. Michael looked a bit surprised, but then he has had the longest stretch of quiet (eight years) of any of them.

Alice wearing a new necklace from Aunt Rebecca.

I also had to raise my voice when I was dealing out the Uno cards. They just can’t leave their cards all in a small pile until I get 7 dealt out to each one. I didn’t yell, but I laid down the law and told them that in some jurisdictions, people have been shot over picking up their cards too early. I don’t tell the kids that this happened in the lawless west hundreds of years ago. I try to make it a present and potential threat.

Their voices are so sweet as they tell me about their parents.  Why would I ever raise my voice.

Richard has gone hunting today. Michael said that he hopes his dad brings home two, even three deer.

I asked why. Michael told me that they have finished eating all of the deer jerky from last year’s hunt.

I asked him how that happened. He said that the three of them believe that their parents are getting up and eating the deer jerky as snacks at night and that is why it has gone so fast.

"I would like to eat just one of these, Grandmother."

Rebecca has been staying with me this week while court has been going on. We slip over to the Johnson’s for evening meals if we are home. Rebecca takes with her, a story telling power and the girls asked to hear the Indigenous tale of Cannibal Boy. Michael doesn’t want to hear it. He has heard it so many times he can tell the story himself. But the girls still want to hear it from their aunt. Rebecca comes to the part in the story where Cannibal Boy is on Coyote’s shoulders and is sucking liquid out of the boil on Coyote’s back and Rebecca is making slurping sounds and acting as though she has a straw in her hands to suck up the contents of the boil. And Rebecca is licking her lips. Slurp. S-l-u-r-p! Rebecca elongates the vowel sound and gives sibilant sounds on the “s”es and bounces off the “p” at the end of slurp. Betty could not take her eyes off of Rebecca’s face but Still Betty needed the defence of putting her fingers in her ears. Perhaps that muffled the horror of the sound a bit. I don’t know.

I think Azul is a good game, but it is for ages 8 and up.

But Michael is getting so that he needs a challenge – one bigger than the games for 4 and 6 year olds.

Alice is sure she can play it, and perhaps she can, for she beat Michael both times in our beginning tries at the game. Alice sits on a chair beside the treadmill.

"Both Alice and  you beat me in Azul!"

Sometimes she swings her body through an open space, hanging onto the handles of the treadmill.

Back and forth she goes as though she is hanging on a monkey bar.

Sometimes she gets on the treadmill and make it go by the sheer force of her legs (no electric motor on).

When I saw her on top of the table sitting in that Asian fashion where her posterior is barely off the ground and her knees are high in the air, almost around her ears, I thought to myself, how much better for me to be attentive to how hard it is for Alice to stay still, then for me to tell her that none of the above is appropriate.

And if she can do all of this, and beat Michael and me at the game, then who am to tell her what to do.

I told the kids they could not come into my house until it was dark, for our second round of games for the day.

I have so much paper work to do after the court case has finished, I just needed time alone to work.

"I want to eat this as well?"

But they kept opening the door and asking much how much longer.

I told them not until it was dark.

Betty had heard me say that would be one more hour, but she reported to the kids, just one more minute.

Ha ha. I had said no enough times.

In they came and we played gams.

Arta