Foiled!
Here’s a quick game for a bit of fun, taught me by a friend many years ago. My kids loved it!
It comes in handy when you’re with a bored child waiting somewhere– in a line at the grocery store, a doctor’s waiting room, or at a restaurant waiting for your food to arrive.
Grab anything that can be twisted to look remotely like a bow: a bread bag twisty, a hair doo-dad, a piece of bow-tie macaroni, even a twisted piece of paper napkin.
Hold it under your nose as if it were a mustache.
In the deep voice of a villain, sneer: “You must pay the rent!”
Move the bow to the top of your head. In a high, sweet, feminine voice, insist “But I can’t pay the rent!”
Repeat this a few times, with increasing emphasis and distress.
“You MUST pay the rent!”
“But I CAN’T pay the rent!”
Then hold the bow under your chin, like a bow-tie.
In a gallant voice, say, “I’ll pay the rent!”
Back to the hair bow and high sweet voice. “Oh, my hero!”
Then to the mustache again, “Curses! Foiled again!”
[From The Power of Parent-Child Play by Laurie Winslow Sargent. Chapter 4: Derailing Tantrums and Defiance, page 43. Published by Tyndale House Publishers, now distributed by WinePress.]
