A family past-time...

My family on my Dad's side has always played cards. My Nana, the Matriarch at almost 90, is the family teacher and has passed her love onto her four boys, her ten grandchildren and now onto the next generation. She always says, "I teach them the games and then they beat me at them!"

We know a variety of games, and some are much more skilled than others. But whenever we get together with a bit of spare time (which is almost never!), the cards invariably come out.

When I was playing Gin Rummy with Nana a few weeks ago, the kids wanted to join in. At four and almost three years of age, pretty much everything in my small repertoirre was beyond them.

So we taught them SNAP! It was a very slow, deliberately leading game, but the kids loved the competition of it and Alex's attention was captured for at least 8 or 9 minutes!!!

From my point of view, the games were always for fun, although getting loads of draw fours in Uno can start to increase my blood pressure! And if things ever got too intense, Nana would always come out with her trade mark line of "We're not playing for sheep stations". It's become a family joke now!

I'm hoping that the kids' interest will stick around long enough to teach them a few more basic games, along with teaching them the important lesson of losing gracefully!