Wicked Game

When you have infant twins, one of the things you have to remind yourself over and over is that this is all supposed to get easier once the girls get a little older. When the girls get older, they start playing together, and when they start playing together, they can entertain themselves, and when they entertain themselves, mommy and daddy can just relax and watch their daughters adoringly from the couch while they sip a cup of tea, eat bon bons, and read the Sunday paper. Or that's my vision anyway. Go with me here.

We haven't quite achieved the dream, but we do see some early signs of our daughters actually playing together. In fact, they have started developing their own games:

Game #1: Ready, Set, Guk!

• Riley drinks from her green cup for 15 seconds. Leah drinks from her pink cup for 15 seconds.
• Riley stops drinking, points to Leah's pink cup and says "Guk!"
• Riley grabs Leah's pink cup with one hand and holds out her green cup in front of Leah with the other hand.
• Leah smiles and grabs the green cup.
• They drink for 15 seconds.
• Riley stops drinking, points to Leah's green cup and says "Guk!"
• Repeat until bored.
  

Two of the games result from the fact that Leah likes to put things into their containers, while Riley likes nothing better than taking things out of their containers:

Game #2: Circle o' Blocks

• Riley takes block out of canister and throws it on the ground.
• Leah picks block up off the ground and puts it in the canister.
• Riley takes block out of canister and throws it on the ground.
• Repeat until bored.
  

Game #3: Baby or No Baby

• Leah puts a baby doll in her toy stroller.
• Leah gets ready to push her stroller around the room, but meanwhile Riley walks over to Leah's stroller, grabs the baby, and throws it on the ground.
• Repeat until Leah manages to push the stroller before Riley takes out the baby, or until a fight breaks out, or until Leah gets distracted by something bouncy or shiny or loud.
  

And then of course, there is Game 4, which is a bathtime game:

Game 4: Mwah!

• Leah leans her head toward Riley, opens her mouth and says "Ahhhhhh" for a couple seconds
• Riley gets the hint and leans her head toward Leah, and one of the following things happen:

1. They plant a sloppy, open-mouthed kiss on each other, and then say "mwah!"
2. They miss each other entirely but say "mwah!" while almost face-planting into the water.
3. They bonk heads.
   

Here's some video footage of the Mwah game, for the few people in the world that my wife has not yet sent it to:



Okay, so the games aren't exactly "Settlers of Cataan" in their level of sophistication, but, hey, the entertainment level is fairly high. And their games teach values like sharing, persistence, and cooperation, unlike the games that Leah invented this weekend called "Let's Stick Our Finger in Daddy's Eye Over and Over" and "It's Fun to Slap Daddy Across the Face".