Poker Faced

You may remember that Wednesdays in our family are "Family Nights" and last night was no exception. Chores (also part of my evil plan as the cleaner comes on a Thursday and the family needs to tidy their stuff off the floor etc.......... Look I know we could have a whole blog session on 'Cleaning before the Cleaner Comes'......), dinner, dishes and then we were all settling down for a nice family game. No TV and no one seems to mind. Yay me!!! So, last night we were learning poker.... yes poker! Might come back to haunt us but there we were running through pairs, three of a kind, straights... etc. Getting the hang of it. Needing to work on our 'poker faces' next as we were a bit hopeless. Note to family 'no cheering when you have a good hand'. After a bit more practice and the chips will come out for some serious stuff!

So, we put a record on the stereo to listen to as background, mood music. Now, the children are a bit scared of the stereo because they can't get their heads around the 'technology'. "What's a track???", "How does the needle-thingy work"..."I'm not touching it!!!!!" Sort of like "Reverse techno-phobic" really. Strange to think what they know as normal in their short lives yet can't wrap their minds around a record player. Still, I braved the stereo and put it on. The record was "Straight Ahead" around 1987 and they knew some of the songs: Tainted Love by Soft Cell etc. So, there we were playing, playing, playing, laughing and learning when suddenly. B-A-N-G!!!! There was a big flash and a smell of electrical fire and......... the stereo had blown up!!!! Well, the kids were up like a shot and g-o-n-e. So, now they are really scared!! Terrified even. They wouldn't even sit near it after it was checked out and unplugged. It still played but we decided not to risk it. How funny!!!! Wednesday nights are getting really interesting.....

Do you spend family time together? What do you do to create memories? Most of the research shows spending time as a family has so many positive benefits. At the moment this the Family Night is pretty big. At one time the Silver Fox was working away during the week and Tweenie Son thought we were divorced. He k-n-e-w we were divorced! We weren't. We just had to do what we had to do and working away for 5 days was it at the time. Still, it made us sit up and take notice of what our life was like and to make a few changes. So, part of this evolution back into family life is being mindful of our everyday life together. We eat together every night and debrief about the day. I guess they will always remember the night when 'the stereo blew up'!!!!!!............

Ciao for now




just Martha