Anna and I have been playing dominoes lately. We have a nice set of double-twelve dominoes, but the first thing we do is pare it down to double-six before we play. At first we started out with very simple rules: Anna always goes first, Anna can peek at the dominoes when she needs to draw, etc. Gradually we have been introducing more rules and are now playing something that is close to a real game. Hopefully by Christmas I can introduce the “mexican train” so that Anna can play with Grandma D. and Grandpa T. At this point we are still playing with our dominoes face up so that I can explain things to her. I think it’s sort of funny that she does so well with dominoes, but still can’t play Chutes and Ladders; she gets confused and loses interest, then only wants to hear the “stories” of what happened to the kids on the illustrations.

Last night while I was cleaning up the kitchen, Anna got out the dominoes and asked if we could play after she first built a tower. After I finished what I was doing, I came over and, seeing her neat little stack of dominoes in progress asked, “Can knock your dominoes down?”

“Not yet,” she replied, “after I finish stacking all these, then you can knock them down.”

“What? Did you say ‘knock them down?’” I shot back gleefully, holding my hand near the stack.

Anna started to grow impatient. “Not until I say!”

“Until you say what?” I asked artfully.

“What you can do.”

“And what will that be?”

Anna scowled. “I’m not going to tell you because you’ll knock them down.”

I hopped up. “Knock them down?!”

Anna pointed to the corner. “Go stand over there.”