boggle: a metaphor for my life

I come from a family of gamers, in the original sense. Yahtzee, Monopoly, Scrabble, Clue, Uno, Rook. And many others. People come to family reunions with their own set of cards in their pocket, ready for a game of Nerts (spelling?) or whatever happens to be in vogue. I have a notebook with the Scrabble scores of almost every game Ben and I have played in our entire married life. Good fun.

My kids are fascinated by games as well. My oldest has really taken to Yahtzee. But a lot of times, my children simply like to pull out all of our games, regardless of age-level, and spread them out all over the house. I have come to harbor a sincere dislike of the game Cranium because it's such a pain to clean-up the aftermath (colored cards e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e).

So the other day I walked into one of the bedrooms to find three children jumping on a bed. The only reason all four of them weren't there is that the baby isn't walking yet, so jumping is out of the question for the time being. But I digress. They weren't just jumping on the bed, they were jumping with all of the letter dice from our Boggle game. Letters were flying up and around everywhere. It was at that moment I made a mistake. I did not stop them.

Now, from a parenting point of view, I have to give myself points for a) not over-reacting, b) not placing dice above my children, and c) not ruining their fun, as I am wont to do from time to time.

But I am paying for it. My Boggle game has been incomplete for awhile now. And I haven't been able to play. Slowly the dice are showing up and I have almost a full tray. As I deposited three more lettered cubes on my desk this morning it occurred to me that little tray filled with letters could be my brain.

Here's the trick -- Even when I do have ALL the letters at my disposal, at any given day, I just come up with consonants and vowels that refuse to connect together.

The upside? Every day I get a new a shake.

P.S. Wanna play? Get out your timer. I'll list my words below...


I'm sure Ben would kick my trash. Nothing really spectacular, but here we go:

tad
tat
rat(s)
rate(s)
rest
rad
gel (s)
bald
art
dart
bat(s)
tread
lite(s)
shear
hear
tear
bare(s)
tare(s)
dare(s)
late
list
delish (...I know, but it's fun anyway)
stat
star
stare
tan
date
dater
glare(s)
tar