Words with Friends...AND family...

I have a problem. Well, technically I have A LOT of problems, but this is a NEW problem. I think we can all agree that I am on the computer WAAAAAAAY too much (as evidenced by my frequent references to facebook--acting as though it is another limb-- and by the incessant blog posts and comments I make more regularly than I do anything else), though I decided to take a break for the holidays. I came to this decision after I heard my son say, "Well, Mommy probably won't play with us 'cause she'll be on the computer the whole time!" Ouch.

Let me tell you a little something about my son. My son is a fighter. He is able to manipulate ANY situation to his liking--something he has been able to do since...I don't know...BIRTH. He hears EVERYTHING and misses NOTHING. That said, I am QUITE certain he heard (hears!) my husband and I...discussing...my computer usage on several occasions. My husband (legitimately, I believe) thinks that I should finish my "work--HA!" on the computer before everyone gets home. I try my best to do that, but since our computer is all we brought with us from the dinosaur era, IT has different plans usually. We might as well have--dare I say it?! DIAL UP with as fast as our computer "moves!" I swear, you look up three things and seven hours are GONE.  It is madness. My husband "heard" and "saw" my complaint (This is SOOOO funny if you watch Parenthood--if you don't, it is probably REALLY dumb. Of course, you SHOULD watch Parenthood--LOVE it! Anyway, Coach (who plays the dad) learned in therapy that when his wife speaks he should say, "I hear you and I see you." H-I-L-A-R-I-O-U-S!  What's funnier is the fact that this particular episode aired over a year ago and we continue to say this phrase to each other. It even makes me giggle right now. Another funny thing is the fact that we heard at least three other couples we know say those same words to each other to mimic the show. F-U-N-N-Y stuff!) ANYWAY...back to my son. He really only needed to hear us talk about it ONCE and sense the guilt and fear of being a bad mom in me ONE TIME to use this against me. I KNOW it is happening, yet I cannot stop it, nor will I stand up to the behavior. Mainly because I myself feel like I am on WAAAAYYY too much. So, my son may be a punk, but he IS on to something.

THIS is why I decided to stay off of the computer (for the most part) for the holidays. This proved to be QUITE a shame, as there are SOOOOO many great stories to tell during the holidays and my ADD does not allow for me to remember and record them all. I decided that I would "catch up" on all of my computer needs on the Tuesday after I dropped the last child off at school. Not a big deal, right? What was it--a WEEK? SURELY I could go A WEEK without using the computer. Two problems with this plan--friends of ours gave me their old iPod (TOUCH!) and my husband gave me a KINDLE (I CANNOT EXPLAIN HOW HAPPY THESE TWO THINGS MAKE ME! I HOPE THE CAPITAL LETTERS GIVE YOU SOME IDEA!) So on New Year's Day (or maybe the Monday after...) I broke down and got on the computer so that I could use my Kindle and iPod. Of course, any time I do ANYTHING on the computer, I travel via facebook--doesn't EVERYONE?! After a week there was at least an hour of activity needed on my account, but I ignored most some NONE of it and remained on the computer for two hours.

Before I deserted my dear friend facebook  exited out of the program, I noticed that one of my facebook friends (who also works at my daughter's school) "challenged" me to a game. This is usually not a problem with me--I ignore all of the games, pokes, mafia hits-LONGING-whatever extra distractions that are set up on facebook (this is due to one very long day in Montana when I spent THE ENTIRE DAY "kissing" "hugging" "poking" and "planting" for my facebook friends, while completely neglecting my family...and actual human friends. That proved problematic to me and after that day I ignored all requests (at the risk of fb friends feeling sad and neglected--they seemed to get over it!). For some reason, I decided to look at and accept her challenge, which brings me to my problem.

The game of which I speak is "Words With Friends" and some of you know it VERY well. Some of you may even have challenged me (though I have about ten games going right now--is that even POSSIBLE?! What is WRONG with me?!) to a game or two and you may or may not know that I AM CRAZY. I am seriously addicted (NOT in the good way--IS there a good way to be addicted?!) to this game and I want to WIN. I am normally not a competitive person AT ALL (before I was married I wanted everyone ELSE to win so that everyone would just be happy...it's painful, right?!), but since marrying the most passive aggressively competitive person EVER (he makes Monika look tame--sorry--I allude to Friends and assume that everyone understands the reference. You do, right? Because they are YOUR friends, too--aren't they? We will seriously sit around and talk about the time that Ross did this and Joey did that or that one of us is "...so Chandler..." Yeah--we have issues. I even remember going to a wedding with Dave before we were married and we sat in the pew LAUGHING about Friends episodes. Yeah--we're going to hell...), so I've had to up my game (so to speak!) over the years.

There are a few games that are banned, though I would be willing to bring them back into action. First, Scattegories. I was a ROCK STAR (That's right--do you QUESTION it?!) when we played that game. I ALWAYS won. I started out as not wanting needing LONGING to win, but playing with Mister "I really don't care who wins (but I will tear your eyes out if I don't!"), I gradually got worse. The last day of Scattegories (or LDOS if you will) came when I wrote "Throw the trash"  to win the game. For those of you who don't know, Scattegories has a ridiculously shaped die that has all of the letters on it. The timer is set and you need to come up with a list of items (actions, people...) that begin with said letter. If you are clever enough (and don't care about annoying your partner) to come up with words that use the letter two or three (once I did four...) times, you will likely win. My brat baby  husband insists TO THIS DAY, that NO ONE says "Throw the trash..." and the game was TEN years ago--that's right--TEN. Maybe even eleven. It doesn't matter, since we have not played since.

Another game we stopped playing was Pictionary. you see, I have this problem of reading into EVERYTHING and Pictionary wasn't even safe. From the time we were just friends, Monika Dave and I played--AND WON--Pictionary. We were annoyingly in tune with each other and could guess what was going to be drawn sometimes before the pen hit the paper. As you can imagine, not-so-much fun at parties. We were always accused of cheating, which bothered me back when I would NEVER have cheated. People even accused us of READING through ALL of the Pictionary cards--like we had nothing better to do--wait a minute--BRILLIANT!  I still stand firm on the fact that we didn't cheat then, but I wouldn't trust us now...

The last time we played Pictionary, we couldn't guess ANYTHING the other one drew. I swore I would do a thesis on the way people play Pictionary versus the demise of their relationships.  Not only for obvious reasons--I know everyone thought I was being a poor sport because we lost--but because of the fact that partners need to be on the same wavelength and in tune with each other in a game like that. When we had an entire night of losses, I was sure the big "D" (you know...a seven letter word that signifies the end of a marriage...?) would be next. That was about NINE years ago and before the three children, so I may need to fine tune that research.  I just know that every time he would laugh about getting something wrong, I was devastated. Goodbye Pictionary.

We moved on to Scrabble, Risk and Boggle. We played Scrabble so regularly that I actually thought we would bring it to the hospital FOR SOMETHING TO DO (HA!) when I delivered my first baby. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I just love prebaby me. She was so dumb. ANYWAY...we did crosswords together every night (though the closer I got to delivery, the fewer we did--don't worry--I saved ALL of them so that we could work on them during the BORING times in the hospital--I almost couldn't type that I was laughing so hard!) and fit in a few Scrabble games a week. We stopped Scrabble because my damn husband used ALL of his letters EVERY game. Seriously--EVERY game. I didn't even know that was a THING. Needless to say, THAT was too much pressure for my pregnant brain (or placenta-brain as my sister affectionately calls it). We tried Risk during Hurricane-whatever-her-name-was and when he took over the ENTIRE PLANET and I rolled yet another losing roll, it almost ended up embedded into his skull (after I threw the dice at him--so much for NOT being competitive...). No more Risk. As for Boggle, I truly believed that I would excel at that game--I am after all an ENGLISH teacher.  Nope. Not against Mr. McCompetitiveson.  We recently reintroduced Boggle to the family and I feel QUITE comfortable playing with my seven and six-year-old. I even play with the five-year-old at times, though she tends to win. I think she cheats.

All of this (yes, I know it is extensive, but did you expect any less?!) brings me to the CHALLENGE. Perhaps it was because it was called a "Challenge." Perhaps it was because I love this woman--she's great. It may EVEN be because I was weakened by the week away from my love computer. Whatever the reason, I clicked, "ABSOLUTELY I will accept the challenge and I WILL allow you to invade WHATEVER you need to invade to get me there!"  That was my first hit off of the crack pipe called Words With Friends and I haven't looked back. I'm getting the shakes now, so I need to find a four letter word with "qi" in it. And eleven OTHER words...