I bought Sawyer an ABC game a while back, but we hadn't opened it yet. He was pestering me to play a game today so I told him we could do the ABC game in a few minutes. After much whining I sat down to play with him. The "game" consists of a board with all the letters of the alphabet printed on it and then a bunch of small cards which have a letter on one side and a drawing of an object whose name begins with that letter on the reverse. I would show Sawyer a picture and ask him what letter it started with. He wasn't getting any of them right (this is why I bought the game in the first place) so then I would tell him which letter and have him look for it on the board (still getting very few right even though I swear he does know quite a few letters). We went through about 5 letters and then I held up the picture of a quilt and asked him to find Q. At which point he went into full tantrum mode and was rolling on the floor and throwing pieces around. After a few minutes I started writing down his rage. I missed the beginning, but I present for you now an "Almost Complete Transcript of a Complete Tantrum."
"You're just doing the too hard ones! You just always do the too hard ones! I want that game out of our house. Cuz if you do the hard ones ever again I won't want to be in our family (fwamly) any more and I won't want to be on the earth ever again. I would just stay in my room and sleep. I'm not going to eat anything you make. I would just stay in my room and sleep. That's all I would do. I would just eat my desserts every day. Stupid letter ABC game. I'm not gonna play your games any more Momma. I'm not. Cuz you did a too hard game. So I'm not even going to learn my letters! I'm just gonna stick with the letters I know. I know P, A, D, L, H, W, A, D, S, P, and....like....H. like H. So I don't want to play your games any more. I'll just stick with my own games. Cuz if you only do the hard ones first on any game I won't even want to play the game. I won't even want to play it ever! If you just do the hard ones first. So just make that chalk game* and I'll play that every day. That's all the game I want to play. I only want to play your easy peesy games. Except after your ABC game you go into the crazy hard games! And I don't want to play it! That's what I don't want to do ever again! Cuz it's too stupid games you make! Just stupid games that you make. Cuz they are always just 'too hard games, too hard games.' That's all you make. Only the hard games. That's all you make. Every day. Or else I would never play your games! If you do that every, every single day!"
(Break to throw pieces across the room.)
"Uh! Boo boo Momma! That's what you always do. You only do the hard and hard and hard. So I'll just stick with my games and never learn your games to play. I'll just learn how to play them and never play them though. That's all I would want to do with your games! your stupid games! and cuz I don't want to play your stupid letter game for learning. I just want to play normal games that's in our closet that have destructions** too. Poo poo Mom."
(bathroom break) Singing the alphabet song while on the toilet and skipping half the letters ending with "W, X, Y and S! S! That's all I would do now!" (muttering to self)
Comes out of bathroom inspecting shorts - "Bwackwards?! Are these on bwackwards Mom?" Then walks back over to game.
"Cuz I don't want to play your games any more. Cuz you are making them way, waaayyy, waaaaayyyy too hard games! Cuz I'll only stick with...cuz I know all the letters to your game! And I'll just always get them right! Xray! X starts with... watermelon! That's what I'll do. I won't play your games! Cuz I'll just know. I know all the letters to your game now. Now I don't have to play it ANY MORE. Cuz I don't like your games any more. You make it way, way, way too hard. So I'm not playing your games of stupidness any more. Bo bo."
"So I'm not playing your games any more. In fact, I'm for sure not doing it. That's what I'm not doing any more. I'll stick with my own letters now. Oh yeaaaahhh. Uh huh."
(Fly goes by) "Flies!"
"Cuz I'm NOT PLAYING YOUR STUPID games any more. That's all they are. They're just stupid! That's what won't ever happen ever again - which is me playing your games."
"Alligator. Lyle. Alligator. Oooowwwww."
"So I'm not playing your stupid bo bo games. That's what I'm not gonna do again." (takes off shoe and throws it)
"Ouch. Bouch. Ouch. Bouch. Ouch. Alligator. Ice. Bryce. Bow wow wice. Ooouuuuucchh."
(wanders off into the kitchen and gets into the band-aids...after a few minutes wanders back into the family room and says "Mom, can you please open the garage?" and kisses my leg.)
The End.
* About a month ago I drew all the letters of the alphabet in chalk on the driveway and tried to play letter recognition games with him. This lasted about 30 seconds before he freaked out that it was too hard and took off. The next day they got washed away by a rainstorm and he flipped out that his game was gone.
** He says "destructions" instead of "instructions" and I don't plan to correct him any time soon.
PS- New blogger can't handle my colored background and I don't know how to fix it. Sigh.
PS- New blogger can't handle my colored background and I don't know how to fix it. Sigh.
4 comments:
The template we were using got a little messed up when Blogger updated. Just go to "template" from your blog dashboard and re-select a template and it should reset everything to look correct again.
looks like you need strategically place "P, A, D, L, H, W, A, D, S, P." in the card stack after every couple he doesn't know. Maybe he'll play longer if he gets some of them right... hahah (I like how he repeated them to make the list look longer...)
I should have mentioned that the letters he listed are the same ones we had just done in the game - all of which he got wrong (except S, he is good at S). But he draws the line at Q.
It is too bad we don't live close. We could have competitions with Sawyer and Chloe to see who throws the most tantrums during a game. Chloe's most used expression during a game is "No fair!" And she does A LOT of whining and moaning if the doesn't get the star fairy when we play Candy Land. Especially since she hides the Star Fairy in her stash so she can get it. So watch out if you screw that up!
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