anthony is a rabid monopoly player. how much does anthony like monopoly you ask? well, every day my kids get a dad hour with me (technically, it's more like 45 minutes on the weekdays because there just isn't enough hours in the evening given the number of family members i have). in your dad hour you get to say what you and your dad (me) will do to spend the time.

here are what people us...

if you see me this week and think you notice a cut over my right eye, your keen vision should be complimented. i do have a cut over my right eye. if you're wondering how a grown, boring man might get a gash over his right eye there is a perfectly obvious explanation: i played a game of uno with my family. what? your family uno games don't involve bloodshed and maiming. perhaps you use different rules. here are some of ours for reference:

if you drop a card on the floor (we play on a coffee table), you get scrumbled which is a dearmitt-word for tickled.

if you drop a card on the floor more than once each scrumbling must last longer and be more intense than the prior scrubmle.

if a card gets dropped several times, like, by a six year old who keeps dropping them on purpose, the severity of the tickles might get so intense that the recipient may flee screaming from the table, the room, and even the floor of the house, resulting in a wild and boisterous chase which shakily reverberates on the ceiling until the inevitable cornering happens. the end game is marked by a large tackle and crash and shrill screams as the tickling begins.

there is another rule that allows someone to yell "table jump" and then do just that, jump over or run around the table and tackle someone beginning a tickle war. i'm not sure what instigates a call of "table jump" as they seemed to occur at unpredictable times, but the fear of suddenly being attacked by one or more people surely helps keep your attention on things (and thankfully not many calls of "your turn" which can plague a table possessing diverse ages and interest-levels).

the table jump is how i got the cut above my eye. problem was when bella table-jumped me, after i played a draw 4 i should reveal, she had a pistachio shell in her hand and in her wild dive towards me her family-grade shank grazed my eye causing the injury. it seems bella doesn't agree that family versions of the game should be weapon-free affairs. and the fact that she went on to win the raucous event didn't allow for any possible learning moments about how people who cheat and maim others never win because it's just not the case when it comes to full-contact uno.

alex has two toys of choice at the moment. one of them is a six foot inflatable alligator and the other is a three-inch high space-cowboy he calls 'cool guy'.

let's begin with the object that inflicts the most physical pain upon me, the life-sized gator. to date i've walked my groin into its upright tail four times. sure you'd think something this large would be easy to spot but it's a sn...

question. do you know the two words most used by a three year old? they are 'no' and 'why'. another question. do you know how demoralizing it is to get whittled down in an argument by an opponent who refuses to say anything other than 'why'? it is the equivalent of losing a chess game to someone who moves nothing but pawns, which for those who don't play chess is pretty sucky.

another que...