Cheater, Cheater, System Beater

Dear Laney,

You come from a long line of competitive people, so I can't fault you for thinking you should win everything. But when you lose a footrace to Dad in the driveway, and then throw yourself down in the dirt wailing, "BUT I SHOULD HAVE WIN IT!," it's not pretty. Based on the simplest laws of physics, your 14-inch legs aren't built for speed. We see you as a short, blonde three year-old, but you apparently see yourself as a 20 year-old Kenyan.

Sometimes you yell "GO," and take off running, and when we start to catch up to you, you pick the nearest point as the finish line and declare, "I win!" By declaring the starting line, the duration, and the finish line for all your races, you have a pretty good win/loss ratio. Also, through trial and error, we've discovered that letting you win 60% of our races is the right mix of confidence- and character-building.

For Christmas last year, my friend Karen got you the game Jenga. In Jenga, you stack a tall tower of wooden blocks and remove them one at a time from the middle, until someone topples the tower on his/her turn, and that person loses, or in the parlance of our house, "doesn't win as much."

For a small person, you are incredibly good at this game. You've figured out some tricks and you can actually hold your own when you play with Dad and me. But boy oh boy is it ugly when the blocks fall down on your turn.

Yesterday, you asked me if I wanted to play Jenga, so I hauled the game out and started setting it up. The phone rang, and I went in the other room for a few minutes. When I got back, I discovered this:

You had GLUED the Jenga blocks together. Despicable. Brilliant. Diabolical. Genius.

You probably would have gotten away with it for at least a little while, had you not chosen purple glue with glitter in it.

Love,
Mom