I, like my son, am an only child. Children without siblings have to find ways to keep themselves amused, because they don't have a built in household playmate. Hubby and I definitely spend a lot more time playing with our son than my parents spent playing with me, but he inevitably has time that he has to fill amusing himself.
When I was a child, I read a lot, I played with Colorforms, dolls...and I played board games. I loved board games and wasn't about to let the fact that I had no one to play them with most of the time keep me from playing them. Life, Monopoly, Pay Day...I played them all by myself. I would use two or more game pieces and go through the entire game. I enjoyed it, even. There is a perk to playing a board game by yourself: You always win. Of course, you always lose, too, but that is neither here nor there. :-)
My son has Hungry Hungry Hippos as well as a knock off version that someone gave us called "Hungry Frogs". He enjoys them both. Obviously they are two entirely different games as one involves hippos who are eager to eat, while the other involves frogs. :-)
Last night while hubby grilled some burgers and I prepared the side dishes, my son said "I wish I could play Hungry Frogs." I said that we could definitely play after dinner, but if he wanted to play right now, he would have to play it himself. Prepared for the usual "I don't want to do that", I was surprised when he said "That was what I meant." I got it down from the game shelf, and he happily played while I finished getting dinner ready. One of the times I looked in on him, he was playing the part of two frogs, with both hands. The other time? He was all 4 frogs, using both hands and both feet. I think that was an official rite of passage of an only child. :-)
After dinner, we played a family game of Hungry Hungry Hippos.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
Isn't it great when they start to entertain themselves? 4yo (almost 5 now) has learned how to play by himself while his brother's in school (still, he starts asking to pick him up at about 11 am). He loves Legos and K'nex.
I'm an only child too. I used to play all sorts of board games by myself. I told my husband about how I'd play Battleship by myself. He said, "oh, sweetie" and gave me this look like it was the most pathetic thing ever. But really, it was a great memory game. I think one of the reasons I'm a writer is that I had to spend so much time creating things for myself as a kid.
I hate to say it, but I played games by myself sometimes too and I'm not an only child. Sometimes my sister wasn't around or didn't want to play. My problem was that I always played as though one token was the "real me" and the other was my opponent, so I'd get upset if the opponent beat me (though it didn't happen very often as I was able to make them play poorly).
I'm not an only child - I have a 3.5 yrs younger brother, who never wanted to play the same things, so I did a lot of reading on my own, I'd play "radio disc jockey" and record myself playing records complete with monologue, Barbies, etc. My kids are 8 years apart and one boy and one girl, so obviously, they are both sort of "onlies". But, I was able to spend one on one time with Buddy and now I do the same with Sissy. They're both pretty independent on playing as well.
Your blog helps me realize that it's okay to not have another child. I'm not "for sure" about anything yet but sometimes I think I could be done but then I worry about him being lonely. But probably because neither Rob or myself are only children.
CDP - My son loves Legos, too. I'm not familiar with K'nex.
Allie - Battleship - I haven't played that in a few years (alone or otherwise). We have it, so maybe I should remedy that.
Jess - Wow - I thought that was unique to only children. It's funny that you would compete with your "opponent".
ETW - I like the disc jockey story. I loved the record function on my tape recorder, too.
Stacey - Thank you! Having only one child wasn't my original plan, but that's how it turned out, and I think we're all okay with that. :-)
Post a Comment