Rat-a-tat-Cat

One of my favorite childhood memories is of playing games for hours on end. I remember Monopoly marathons, Risk(a favorite of mine), Life, Trouble, Pictionary, and of course the Crump Classic, Shanghai. No camping trip with the extended family could be considered complete without a late night game of Shanghai!

Now that the girls are getting older it has been fun to start playing games with them. We recently discovered a new game called Rat-a-tat-Cat. I loved the idea of a game with strategy that all of us had an equal chance of winning. So I sat down and taught Emilee and Sadie how to play. The idea of the game is to collect the cards with the fewest amount of points, the cat cards, the rat cards are all high points. The trick is you don't get to look at your cards.

In game after game, I would try to "help" Sadie. "Take the three, " I would try to convince her, "it's a low card." "No, Mom I want this one," and she would turn over a zero. "Oh, don't do that," I would stay, because statistically her chances of drawing a lower card were small...and yet, against the odds she would draw that lower card. "Rat-a-tat-Cat," I would call to end the round, absolutely sure that my 4 point total was an assured winner. Sadie would turn over her hand to reveal a 2 point total, 2 zero's and 2 one's. Brian sat down with us to play, I think because he thought maybe I was "letting" Sadie win, but no, she beat him too!

A couple nights ago, we sat down for a couple of rounds. I showed Sadie how to "cut the deck" and deal the cards. (Important skills for any six-year old, right?) After four hands we were all off to different activities. As Brian and I were talking downstairs, I wondered what Sadie was doing, it was awfully quiet upstairs, and she is usually not the silent one around the house. A few minutes later she appeared at my side, "Mom, come play again with me and Emilee,". "I can't right now, Sadie maybe later." A little while later I was upstairs and found a game very carefully laid out. A little glimmer crossed my mind, and I knelt down just to satisfy my curiousity. I turned over Sadie's cards and sure enough found 4 cats, all zero's. Emilee's hand was full of rats, all 8's and 9's. My hand was a little more mixed. I put away the cards, and later that night when Sadie asked, "Mom, did you put away the game?" I answered, "Yes, who do you think was going to win?" Her first response was a shrug, and then this little Sadie grin, started to peek out. "Mom, I made my cards all zero's!!! and filled Emilee's hand with rats! Tee-hee-hee"

Brian and I have been laughing about it ever since. Imagine that, one of our daughters turning out competetive! We'll save the "it's as much fun to play as it is to win" lesson for later. I'm still playing Rat-a-tat-cat, but for the next little while, I think I'll keep dealing!