The Power of Veto

It seems that my children have been learning a lot about what it means to live in a democratic society. Tonight during family home evening, I was vetoed. I guess I should explain why. A few weeks back (before I had my wonderful FHE board), it was my turn to pick the activity and I had let it slip my mind. I knew I had to come up with something fairly quick and it had better be good, but nothing was coming to me except for "Sorry" which seems to always be the fallback game, and I really did not want to play because Ariel almost always wins and GLOATS about it and Cecily always ends up crying. Not exactly the memories I want to create for every family home evening. For some reason, I started thinking about the laundry that I had left unfolded earlier in the day from when I had to leave to go and sub for the last part of the day. Thinking of this, I remembered my friend Lisanka , who has 5 children, telling me about how one time she got her kids to play a game of whoever folds the most laundry wins a prize. Well, I thought, "This has to be inspiration! Let me kill two birds with one stone." LOL. I need to mention that several times the girls kept questioning me (even before inspiration hit), "What is our activity tonight, mom?" My answer was, "you'll have to wait to see, but I promise it is going to be the best game ever!" The more Cecily asked, bless her heart, the more excited her eyes got. She literally was sitting on the sofa shaking her body with excitement telling dad to hurry up so that we could play the best game ever. I do have to say as a sidenote, I was feeling a little bad, but inside I couldn't help but laugh. Finally, Mike finished his lesson and they said, "Okay, mom it's time for your game". In college, I learned that presentation was everything when trying to sell something; I did not want to just bring out the laundry. I mean come on the "best game ever" needed to have a better introduction than that. So, me being the mom that I am said, "Okay, everyone close your eyes really tight", and I kept saying, "you're going to love this, it is going to be so great" in the happiest voice I could ever have. I have to say one thing, they were excited (well, not Mike, he was more like let's get on with it). So while they had there eyes shut, I went and got the big laundry basket and dropped it in the middle of the den and said with a BIG smile, "Surprise, Here's the best game ever. Open your eyes." I wished I had videotaped it because the look from shear excitement to "this is it--this is the best game ever" was priceless. It will be forever imprinted in my brain. It was almost the same reaction as Ralphy in The Christmas Story when he got the secret decoder and the message was :"Drink more Ovaltine". LOL. I said, "Come on, it's great whoever folds the most laundry neatly gets a prize." Mike stopped them and reminded them that if this was the best game ever then the prize would probably be (drum roll please): cleaning the toilets. I was like, hey I didn't think of that. Once again, expression priceless. Needless to say, Cecily did help fold and she did get some candy as a treat, but I did go down in our family as planning the "lamest activity ever". I've got to admit, it was pretty funny. That's why I was vetoed. I guess I can't blame them. Even though I promised it was a better activity, they didn't want to hear about it. So, what did we end up playing, you guessed it: "Sorry"! Mike ended up winning, Ariel ended up mad because she did not win, and Cecily ended up crying. OH THE MEMORIES.