His cheating heart

Last night, Jack was downstairs playing with Josh and cleaning up toys before bed when he asked nicely if he could play Candyland. Because he asked so nicely and we had a couple of minutes, we said sure.

We all went upstairs and Jack and I cleaned up the toys in the living room while Josh busied himself in the kitchen. After a few minutes, I went in to see what in the world was taking so long to grab Candyland off the shelf and bring it in.

I found him RIGGING THE CARDS. I gasped and asked him just what he thought he was doing. I mean, how could he do this? How could he cheat like that? And my God, what was that teaching our child?

He smirked and told me he didn't want a marathon game and Jack needed to be in bed in 15 minutes, so he was simply expediting the whole process. I should have refused to play, but that would have only been hurting Jack, so I reluctantly sat down to play.

We always go in the same order: Jack, Daddy, Mommy. Jack always picks the colors we will all be and then blue guy (for some reason he never has anyone be blue) sits on the side. "He watching us," he says proudly. So now the blue guy is witness to this scam, too. Great.

Jack goes first and wouldn't you know it -- he draws the ice cream cone. For those no longer familiar with the board layout, that is the absolute best card in the deck as it catapults you to the end of the path, leaving you to reach the end with about five more cards.

He was very excited about going alllllllll the way through the board and then graciously told Daddy it was his turn. I remarked that it would be really sad if Jack got the gumdrop card next time, thereby rendering Josh's machinations pointless. Josh just laughed and whispered that he hid the rest of the special cards at the bottom of the deck, so there was no chance.

I hissed, "You are CHEATING at CANDYLAND" and he glared at me and told me Jack totally heard me. I assured him he did not, as he was too busy reaching the end and winning to notice what I was saying.

Josh said it was just sour grapes on my part, as I was mad I didn't get the ice cream cone. Of course, with my next card, I landed on the licorice "lose a turn" and became even more pissed. Karmic justice apparently doesn't exist in the world of Candyland or it would have been Josh who drew that lot. That's OK. I can carry the burden silently.

But someday when Jack gets thrown out of college for forged SAT scores, we'll be able to tie it all back to this. And I will place the blame squarely on his father. I can safely tell him that I was an unwilling accomplice and only participated in this ruse because I felt threatened. Threatened by a rainbow road filled with candy and nuts.