Friday, March 18, 2011

Sick days and Monopoly

Monkey stayed home sick yesterday. The night before, he was in a tremendous amount of pain from a headache and then got a slight fever. Even though he was quite a bit better in the morning, I opted to keep him home in case he was actually incubating the flu.
We took it easy most of the day and Ryan enjoyed cuddling in daddy’s big chair wrapped up in a fuzzy blanket. As his energy increased, he decided that a sick day was a perfect opportunity to play board games. His personal favorite right now is Monopoly, which he purchased with his Christmas money. He likes to play it as often and Titan and I will tolerate it. There’s only so many times you can spend half the day playing a board game before you start to really dislike it.
Since Monkey was home on a sick day and he was exhibiting good behavior, I told him I’d be happy to play with him. I admit it. After the first 2 hours, I was getting a little weary. I mean, how many times can one person land on “Free Parking?” Well, as of this moment, Monkey’s done it 10 times. Yep. And me? I landed there once. One turn previous to me landing there, Monkey beat me to it and cleaned out about a $1,000 in cash! I missed all that money by one roll of the dice! Argh.
It was very obvious that Monkey’s luck was far better than mine. He was clobbering me. After playing for more than 3 hours, I had determined that when he had cleaned me out of all of my $100 bills (I certainly didn’t have any $500’s!) I was going to forfeit the game so I could just be done with it. I gave him a warning when I was down to my last few bills. Then, just as fast as I’d said it, I owed him rent again and I was wiped out.
Typically, Monkey likes to win and he likes to gloat about winning. He’s extremely competitive which can make playing games with him very difficult. This time, he pulled out all of his $500 bills and started counting them. As I watched him count, I imagined he was trying to calculate how soundly he’d beaten me. He had $5,000 in $500 bills, not to mention his huge stack of $100 bills. What happened next took me by surprise. He took a small handful of $500 bills and handed them to me. He had just given me a gift of his own Monopoly money!
I asked him, “What’s this for, honey?” He replied, “I’m having fun and I want to keep playing.” There was no gloating. He was sincere. I was simultaneously surprised and thrilled! This was so different for him. I decided to roll with it, saying, “Wow! You are a very nice boy. I’d love to keep playing with you! Thank you for the gift, honey.”
Do you want to know how many times he technically won and bankrolled me some money to keep going? Four times. And counting. We’ve been playing off and on for the past 24 hours. As of this moment, the tide is turning and I think I may actually be winning. How will we end the game? I have no idea. But, we’re both having fun and I’m happy to report that Monkey feels 100% better.       

Here's the game, a full day after we started. Monkey is the banker.
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