Stay there all night and be good | The Mad Game

I have many vivid memories of the first house I lived in, which is affectionately known as "The Little House". I can remember playing in the front yard with Dad and Mom in the evening, and roping Dad into playing a game of his own making, which was called "Stay there all night and be good". I was six when we moved out of that house, so Barry and I were very young. How it worked: We would run up to Dad and tackle him, he would act surprised, capture us and take us to the front step and sit us down while sternly saying "Stay there all night and be good". Then he would turn away while saying to himself "They'll never do that again." or "that will be the last I hear of him" and that was our cue to start the cycle all over again, squealing and laughing as we ran back to him and tackled him again. I am sure that Dad was ready for the game to end on the second cycle but it seems he played it endlessly with us.

Fast forward to 2008.

Now someone is hollering at me to play "The Mad Game". This is a twisted version of Dad's game. Landon tackles me and I pretend to be mad, capture him, put him behind the chair, cover him with a blanket and walk away muttering the same things that my Dad would say 32 (EEEK) years ago. (Did I really just write that!? ) Only...... he doesn't get the part where he is supposed to come after me....he just gets out from behind the chair and yells at me to come back. Charming. He was laughing very hard today while playing and at one point he stopped, let his face sag and said barely using a face muscle he said "My is running out of laughing".