Page 34 of Where We Found Our Home
You might want to watch your mouth next time.
Smart-ass.
“I want to play a game,” Nevaeh declares.
“What should we play?” Lincoln asks.
“Tag?” Nevaeh says, her voice full of hope.
“Tag is boring,” Malcolm whines.
“Yeah, it’s just we’re older than she is, so her little legs won’t let her catch us,” Niecy offers.
Malcolm is nine and Niecy is twelve, so I can imagine it’s hard to have to include a five-year-old in your games, and they’re nearing the age where they won’t want to include her, but Nevaeh worships the ground they walk on. I want them to find a common ground.
“What if we make it more challenging for everybody?” I ask.
“How do we do that?”
“We’ll play TV Tag instead of regular tag.”
“What’s TV Tag?” Niecy asks, but her voice goes up a little bit. I might be onto something here.
“It’s still Tag but there’s no safe spot. The only way to not get tagged is to stop and shout out the name of a TV show before the It person gets you. And you can’t repeat the show the last person said or you get tagged anyway.”
“Ooh, I know a lot of TV shows.” Nevaeh is pumped. I know when she’s at Sasha’s if she’s not coloring she’s usually watching a show on Sasha’s tablet, so I figured this would be a good twist for her. I used to love TV tag when I was a kid.
“And Nevaeh gets three cheats. She can call on me or Uncle Linc three times to carry her if she’s It.” I gotta give the munchkin an advantage somewhere.
“Okay, I like it.” Malcolm is on board now too.
“But how does someone win?” Niecy asks, and right there I’m convinced she’s going to grow up to be a lawyer just like her mom.
“In the last round, the It person has to tag everyone before the players untag each other and they win. Otherwise, the players win.” All the kids nod their head in agreement.
I look up to find Lincoln watching me, and I squirm under his gaze.
Take that heat elsewhere, sir. There will be none of that today.
We play rock, paper, scissors to figure out who’s It first, and of course it’s Lincoln. Then it’s off to the races.
We’ve been playing way past the point of this being entertaining for me, but I’m glad they’re having fun. These kids are fast as hell. I need to up my cardio game. I may be strong but I am slow. Good Lord. Honestly, I’m praying for a full-blown asthma attack to give me an excuse to take a break, and I don’t even have asthma. Whose idea was this?
Don’t answer, I know.
Malcolm has picked up on my weakness, and he’s beelining straight for me.
“Golden Girls!” I yelp at the last second. Malcolm stops and looks at me in full-blown confusion.
“What’sGolden Girls? You can’t make shows up.”
Gasp! “What’sGolden Girls? That question is blasphemous.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“Good point. Anyway, it’s a real show, I swear. It came out in the eighties.” I cross my heart.
“That’s old!”
