On Motherhood and Monopoly

As you may already know, playing Monopoly with only two players is very boring. Once a player gets a monopoly the other player is facing certain death- at least this is my experience. If you're the unfortunate player languishing behind you can only wish for a quick death but often (believe me) it is a long drawn out torturous and agonizingly boring demise. One tedious game can take days. Here's my harrowing and true tale:

Two fateful weeks ago, I innocently agreed to Lily's challenge to play Monopoly - just us two chicks. Girl time / mother- daughter bonding and all of that. I was off to a great start, beating her badly the first two games. It was great. Understandably, this made my sweet daughter angry. She quickly figured out my winning strategy and has been determined to avenge her loses. Now she's like a dog with a bone. There's no letting go. With the game figured out and her natural competitive nature in full gear, she's out to win. The standings as of this hour are 2-3. She has slaughtered me in the last 3 games. We've been playing in the mornings before school and manage to squeeze in a few rolls of the dice after school, before her various sports activities begin. We even played in the evening after I hosted 30 people to my house for Easter. It's exhausting.
But here's the kicker - Today, driving home after soccer practise, she says to me, " Mom, can we play Monopoly as soon as we get home? I really like playing with you. You're fun to play with because you're not uptight or strict. I'm glad it's just the two of us playing. It's so much fun. "

So, here's a nod to all the mothers out there. We don't always know what we're doing but we do our best and a simple and sincere comment like - I like playing with you because you're not uptight - makes our day. I also find it very helpful to remain hopeful that some day soon my daughter will tire of Monopoly and move onto Backgammon or Checkers or even Solitaire! That would be good.