More Games I Play with My 2 Year-Old, or Why My Child Will Need Therapy

Let's Play Dead - where Whitney and I lay on the floor side-by-side until she moves accidentally-on-purpose, at which time, we have the following conversation:

Me: Dead people don't move! Are you a vampire?
Whitney: Noooooooo!
Me: Are you Jesus?! Resurrected from the dead?
Whitney: Nooooooooo, I'm not Jeeeesus!
Me: Are you a zombie?
Whitney: Yeeeessss!

Zombies - this is really a follow-up to the "Let's Play Dead" game, but it stands on its own and not every "Zombies" game starts with "Let's Play Dead". We basically chase each other around the house in a fucked-up game of tag, one of us yelling "brraaaains" (or, in Whitney's case, yelling "I'm going to eat the brains out of you!") and the other screaming in fear.

Bears - like Spooky Bathroom, "Bears" is not so much a game as something Whitney does 90% of the time when she goes to the bathroom. She likes to pretend the bathroom is her cave, I'm the Momma Bear and she's the Big Girl Bear. I am often growling and talking in a deep voice like a moron while I wipe her butt - you're welcome for that mental image. If Chase is home, sometimes we pretend to be afraid of Daddy Bear, who is supposedly coming to get us.

Ice Cream (also called "Customer") - a game where Whit and I take turns as the "baker" and the "customer". Her restaurant serves only ice cream, and she never ever has the flavours I request. She mainly serves strawberry and chocolate ice cream (and if I request, say, strawberry, she tells me she only has chocolate. She never has broccoli ice cream in stock). We mainly just lick pretend cones, which I imagine looks fairly obscene from a distance. Recently, Whitney has started carrying around a small cardboard candy cane box (empty) that she uses to collect money ("tickets"), and serve the ice cream from. Out of all the games we play, this is the one we take on the road with us most often because it's easy (if a little embarrassing) to play on public transit. 

"Make It Talk, Momma!" - It started with Horace the Elephant, a stuffed animal that Jeremy's parents bought for Whit, and it has since morphed into a game we play with almost all of her toys. Whitney is constantly on me to make her dolls, stuffed animals, and other inanimate objects talk to her. I have totally embarrassing, distinct voices for them all, and I'll pull them out in public if I have to (preferably in a whisper). My favourite voice was for her Diego action figure because I really felt I was starting to get a hang of the Spanish ("Spaneesh") accent ("Queeek! There is an aneemal in trrroooouble"), and then I watched Go Diego Go and realized he doesn't sound like a Mexican at all. Whoops. 

Hide and Seek - The old standby. She recently learned that she has to go to another room to hide, but rarely actually conceals herself once there. It's more like, she runs to the nearest bedroom and giggles while she waits for you to find her jumping on the bed. Still, it's an improvement over what used to be her standing in the middle of the room and me pretending to look for her. Basically, Hide and Seek with Whitney is a lot like Hide and Seek with Louis CK's daughter (and Louis and I feel the same way about it):