Game On!!

The other day as our boys were hanging out with their friends, looked across the room as my husband who had a zombie look pasted on his face and thought, “It’s time for a little fun!” But what’s a couple to do with a houseful of boys under their feet? Hmmm, time for some quick thinking…

Our youngest child is to say the least, a hockey freak! The child lives NHL. In fact, a few years ago, one of his teachers told us in a parent-teacher conference that she’d finally figured out the only way to get him to pay attention in math class was to put the problems into hockey terms, as in … “If a hockey team was sitting on the bench waiting to hit the ice and the Zamboni ran over two of the sticks, how many sticks would be left?” Way to go Teach!

All this to say, our child has an air hockey table in his room. Surprised? Don’t be. In fact, I think our son would much rather sleep on top of the table rather than in his own bed, but a mom’s gotta put her foot down somewhere, don’t you agree? So while the kids were busy burning out their brains on video games with their friends, I grabbed my husband and challenged him to a game of air hockey.

Now to some this may not sound like any fun. However, let me just say, I am a lone woman in a sea of males, and when times get desperate, the desperate play sports! With a wink and a nod he knew not to say a lick about what we were going to go do to the troops laying at our feet, lest they spoil our fun. Ever so quietly we made our way down the hall to our son’s room, quietly locked the door behind us and flicked on the table. Yahooie! Game On!

Now I will say that nothing spurs on my husband like a little healthy competition. He knows he can beat me at well, basically anything sports related and I’m ok with that. Yet having grown up with 2 older brothers, I’d like to think that I could hold my own… at least for a minute or two.

So there we were, jostling for the puck, slamming it down the boards and lovin’ every minute of it. Of course, it took all of 3.2 seconds for the boys to come pounding on the door…thank heavens for locks! They begged, they pleaded, they whined. Naturally we did what every other married couple would do in our situation, we screamed, “Go away! Leave us alone!”

When the kids realized we were not opening the door, they headed back to their video games and we continued our match. Pucks hit the wall, bounced off our son’s dresser and I think we may have chipped some paint off his desk, but…o-well, nothing a little touch-up won’t fix.

For the next half hour we laughed, cheered and taunted each other about one another’s awesome air hockey skills.

When at last the hockey paddles were laid down, we knew we’d built another fun memory. One that included me winning 2 games, I might add. Ok, ok, so we played 10 and he took the other 8 but who’s counting? You’re right; we both are which means there will be a rematch soon, very, very soon!

Spur of the moment games can be lots of fun. If gives you a chance to talk smack, beef up each other’s bravado and simply laugh until your sides hurt. Who says kids get all the fun anyway? So get out there, go hit a bucket of golf balls, play a game of ping-pong or shoot some pucks.

Comedian Victor Borge once said, "Laughter is the shortest distance between two people." Grab your spouse, spark a some laughter and get a little closer.