I am writing now on the computer when Youngest Daughter comes up to me hopping on the spot. Telling me that she has almost got 5000 steps on her pedometer. This since supper, mind you. And moments before stepping into the tub, dear readers, she finally surpassed the coveted milestone. I just caught her trying to clip the darn thing to her naked toe as she stepped into the tub. INTO THE TUB, people. She then proceeded to ask me to check it, as it sat forlornly in the basket by the tub, as if it might have got up and hopped around the room while I was washing her hair.  As if it could possibly have a blessed moment of peace.  As I write these very words, she is calling to me from the upstairs tub to come and get her OUT. So she can STEP SOME MORE. And my friends and colleagues wonder why I am looking a little haggard these days.

This was not the point of this blog.  The point was to talk about my complete lack of prowess at chess.

Last night, Son suggested we play chess. Good times. REAL.GOOD.TIMES. When I play chess, it usually ends in tears. As in, I’m crying (inside) like a baby. But I guess you could say last night’s game was certainly also good for a few funny laughs at my expense, if you call losing to your fourteen year-old son in a silly board game amusing. But then again, these grumbling sentiments of mine are partly due to the fact that I am the worst chess player in the universe. I know that. Son knows that. Husband knows that. Now the rest of the world is in on our little family secret.
It’s humiliating, really.
Now that I am forty, I have a sinking feeling that my brain cells are diminishing at a more alarming rate than I have previously been accustomed to. So I agreed to play with Son anyway (partly because my brain cells are diminishing at an alarming rate and I no longer know any better, … and also partly because I keep forgetting how bad I actually am at chess. It never seems to take me too long to remember though.) I usually agree to play chess because I think I am exercising my brain. However, some things don’t want to be exercised anymore when you turn forty- things like brains and bellies. And buttocks. They actually RESIST exercising, like there is some sort of rule about the point of no return. If I started exercising my brain (and other things) at this point in my life, I would be very afraid at what might be the outcome. At what might HAPPEN. But that is another story to pursue. For another blog, another day.
It’s not like I didn’t have my cheerleaders rooting for me. One second into the game- after I moved the very first fresh-faced pawn up two spaces on the board to face his daunting adversaries, Youngest Daughter looks cheerily at the board and says, “Good move Mom!” It was all downhill from there. At the end of the game, after a few tears, a long walk and a swift pep talk (THIS- all for me, by the way: a.k.a. The Loser of the Game): Son looks at me and says, “You did pretty good Mom, considering what you had left to work with.” I think he meant the measly few pawns and the terrified King who was hiding behind them. Not my brain cells.

I am praying that’s what he meant anyway.  One can always dream.