Sharing is Caring

I’m usually the first up in our house. The four-year old is normally second up, and this morning was no different. As I’ve posted before sometimes we read his favorite books and other times we play “birthday party” with his stuffed animals.

 “Wanna play a game instead this morning?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let’s do it, Daddy.”

“Ooh, this is a good one. We haven’t played it in a while. Do you remember how to play? Remember, you flip the cards over and you try to match them up? We take turns, and if you make a match you keep that pair and get to go again?”

“Oooh, I love matching the mommy and daddy animals with their baby animals!”

“OK. You can start… No, no, bud, you flip over two cards at a time, bud. Not three or four. And if you don’t make a match, it’s my turn. Ooh, and try to remember what you see. Here let’s flip yours over. And remember ‘bunny’ there, ‘bluebird’ there, and ‘lion’ there. K?”

“Ooh, Daddy, you got the kitty! Cute kitty kitty.”

“Ahh, I got ‘kitty’ there and ‘monkey’ here.”

We proceed to play a few more rounds. Excitedly he makes his first match. I notice some possible matches, but keep flipping over random ones, calling out the animals names each time.

“Look, I have owl, owl, fox, fox, and cow, cow. I have six cards. Your turn.”

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. I have eight cards! Here’s cat, and… kitten! Here, Daddy, you can have these two.”

“No, no, Sweetie. You found that pair. No, it’s yours.”

“It’s okay, Daddy. Here. Here you go.”

“Oh. Oh. Huh. You’re too sweet little boy. You don’t have to share them with me.”

“Here, these are for you.”

“Ahh. Thanks. You’re the best.

With both a ten and twelve-year old sibling and with our family’s viewing of many sports competitions, our four-year old surely knows of the concepts of winning and losing. But at this moment, he must have realized we were just playing and that we should both just have fun. Man, what a sweet age to be!