Distracted Dad plays the name game

“Shall we guess how many dogs we’ll see on the trip up to school?” I say. “I’m going for three.”

(This is the sort of game we’ve invented to stop them arguing. Let’s see how it works.)

The Boy and Youngest(TM) consider this. “I want to go for three” says The Boy.

We can’t both go for three. I switch to two, then Youngest(TM) wants to go for two, so I have to shift my prediction to four. This is the thing about good parenting. You don’t always get your first choice. Sometimes, you have to stand aside. I imagine it’ll be the same when I take them into Ladbrokes at the start of the horseracing season. I’ll have to re-use this same good parenting trick.

Back to the dogs. We are halfway up the hill, and no dog has been spotted. Or even one with just a plain coat. (Joke.) What I mean to say is, we haven’t seen any dogs at all. The Boy wants to change his prediction to one. I let him. Again, good parenting. Always respect in-play betting.

I know you’re on tenterhooks as to the result. The upshot is that we didn’t see any dogs that day. I’ve never known anything like it. I’ve heard of Dog Day Afternoon but this was a No-Dog-Day-Morning.

“The Boy – with his impressive knowledge of species and sub-species -– won’t just go for turtle, he’ll go for Alligator Snapping Turtle”

We have other animal games. One, I’m going to call ‘Guess the Animal’. One person thinks of an animal and the others have to guess it, by asking yes/no questions. It’s basically ‘Animal, Vegetable, Mineral’ with less variety. Myself, The Boy and Youngest(TM) have different approaches to this game. The Boy – with his impressive knowledge of species and sub-species -– won’t just go for turtle, he’ll go for Alligator Snapping Turtle. An animal is quite difficult to guess when you haven’t heard of it. Meanwhile, I’m going for ‘rabbit’. Actually, The Boy even questions my questions. If I say, ‘Is it bigger than a spider?’, he’ll ask me the type of ‘spider’ and he doesn’t seem to accept ‘a big spider’ as the answer.

This brings me onto Youngest(TM). Now, myself and The Boy have to emphasise that when he thinks of an animal he has to keep it secret, which he does, of a sort. (He actually turns his head slightly and whispers it). He started by having three favourite answers. “A really big horse” was the first one. Answer to the question “Is it bigger than a horse?” equals “Yes. It’s a really big horse”. Then he went on to badger (which for all intents and purposes appears to be normal-sized). Finally, he has two new favourites – a really, really big dog with black head and brown ears, and a tiny camel, smaller than an ant. This last one – especially the first time – was surprisingly difficult to guess.

The final game, played between me and The Boy involved using the last letter of an animal to be the first letter of the next. He, as I’ve stated earlier, has a higher range to choose from. He can bring Umbrella Cockatoo or Lamagia out the bag, whereas I’m simply pleased if the preceding animal ends with a ‘c’ so I can use my ‘cat’ trump card. I get stuck when the Boy says ‘Lynx’. We’ve also had to introduce a no-repeat rule, otherwise you can get stuck in a ‘Tiger-Rabbit’ eternal spiral, which is no fun for anybody.