I know this will get me nominated for bad mom of the year, but I’m going to admit it out loud.  I don’t like playing the game of Candyland.  I will even admit that I actually hid the game for several months from my kids and claimed that it was lost.  But the guilt overrode my desire not to play Candyland and the game was “mysteriously” found.

Five years ago, give or take a few months, I rambled to anyone who would listen about how much I loved playing Candyland with my daughter.  In typical first mom fashion, I bragged about how advanced she was to be playing Candyland by herself at such a young age. If anyone had actually observed my version of playing Candyland with a 2 ½ year old, they would have laughed hysterically.  Basically, I played both game pieces (hers and mine), while trying to convince her that the goal of the game was not to dump the whole game onto the floor.

It’s not that it’s a terrible game.  It’s cute, it’s easy and it’s happy.  But after many hundred times (especially since my kids just had to hear the Legend of the Lost Candy Castle written the inside of the box before each game), it just becomes boring.  Something that I didn’t realize at the time is that if you start playing Candyland when your kid is  2 ½ years of age, you have several very long years until your child is ready to graduate to a more interesting game.

In hindsight (which is usually 20/20) what I was really excited was that we were entering the phase where she was a real person, not just a toddler.  She was becoming someone I could talk to, play games with, and take her places that both of us would enjoy.  I was more excited about the years ahead of us than I was about the actual game of Candyland.  

I think I’m now able to admit this out loud because my kids have recently graduated to playing “real board games” and I realize how much more I enjoy playing these games as a family. Instead of moving gingerbread pieces around the kandy kingdom, we now have Uno tournaments, marathon games of Life Twists and Turn and rousing games of Battleship. I think that I will never tire of yelling “I sunk your battleship!”  My husband and I even been known to play these games by ourselves several times after the kids have gone to sleep (but don’t tell the kids).  

The most amazing thing is that these games involve strategy and my kids can actually sometimes beat my husband and I.  My 5-year-old son is by far a better player at Blokus than anyone else in the family and wins almost every game.  As often as possible, we try to have family game nights around the coffee table.

If I’m really lucky my kids will cherish our many game nights and be excited to play board games with their kids. Maybe even I’ll get the chance to watch Trevor or Laurel attempt to “play” Candyland with one of their 2 ½ year olds. Boy am I going to cheer when their toddler dumps the game on the floor!

Do you have any games that dread playing with your kids? Or any games that you really enjoy playing together?

Jennifer appears Mondays on TriangleMom2Mom.