Wanna play the Redbud game?

I’m pretty worthless when it comes to teaching our boys about the natural world. I can pass on one absolute about nature: “You reap what you sow”. I know that it takes water and warmth to make something grow, and I can identify a Magnolia tree, a Rose bush and a Redbud. That’s about the extent of it.

So generally, when I have the opportunity to teach them something, no matter how small, about the amazing world in which we live, I do what I can…and leave the rest to Dad.

Of course, Dad’s not always with us on our road trips. And when you spend as much time riding in the car as we do, it’s quite helpful to find ways to keep their minds busy, lest the most deadly form of carsickness known to parents today should flare-up: the Stop Touching Me Syndrome. There’s just something about being buckled down and a foot-and-a-half away from one’s sibling, that causes a child’s hands and mind to short circuit. And then…pandemonium ensues.

A while back on one of our longer car rides this spring, about thirty seconds before my breaking point, I saw a small window of opportunity to save my kids from two, well-deserved beatings. I pointed out to the boys a blooming purple tree that was sitting to the side of the road, all alone on the landscape. “It is called a Redbud. It is the state tree of Oklahoma,” I informed them, terribly proud of this tiny bit of horticultural knowledge I had stored.

They seemed somewhat impressed, and after I convinced them that THE REDBUD they had seen was not THE one and only state tree in Oklahoma, that there were lots of them all over the place, it became a game--or rather a competition--to see who could find the most along the way.

“Wanna play the Redbud game?” one child would say as soon as we’d hit the highway.

In all of our travels that spring, we’d managed to learn just where those Redbuds were blooming along our route. One to the east just north of the 152 junction. One in the backyard of the house across the road. A whole row of them on the south side of town just as we were driving into Burns Flat.

It became more of a test of attention rather than a test of discovery. But that’s ok. I’m up for any game that can keep them busy, even sort of quiet, and requires absolutely zero physical contact. It seems I’d found my new, favorite traveling companion.

As if the Redbud game wasn’t gift enough, spending so much time in the car had evidently taught the boys to get creative on their own. Their second favorite game? “What is it?” And no, that’s not a question. That’s the game. It seemed a bit akin to the old standby, “Pick a hand” but with a different twist.

“Wanna play ‘What Is It?’” one child would ask. “OK. I go first,” was usually the second child’s response.

I suppose the rules were, that if an item could fit into your hand, it was fair game. All a person needed to do was close his fist around it and say, “OK. What is it?” And then would begin the barrage of answers from the guesser. Yeah, well, I didn’t say it was brain surgery.

Toward the end of the ball season, it seemed they had moved on to bigger and better games, like reading the fine print that is chiseled on any coin they could find. Of course one must realize that at the time, neither of the boys could read much beyond their names or the names of their favorite ball teams. So they just stuck to reading the numbers.

“This one was born in 1987.”
“This one was born in 1972.”
“This one was born in 1889.” Nope, son, better read that one again.

They each had a stack of coins in their door handle, and they played the game so much they had all but memorized the dates printed on every one. It soon became too easy. Boring. So again, they got creative.

“OK. This is a penny. When was it born?” And whoever happened to be in the car at the time got a free invitation to guess the date etched onto the head’s side of every coin--whether they wanted it or not.

It’s funny the kinds of things that will keep our kids busy. Who’d have thought an insignificant bit of trivia I’d remembered from a history class taken 24 years earlier could bring hours of cheap entertainment to our boys. But gratefully, it had. And I’ll take counting games, guessing games, and even nonsense games over chaos and mayhem any day.
“Wanna play the Redbud game?”

And that’s All in a day’s work!