I love having children! They teach me something new all the time. Without them, I'd be stuck in a rut of seeing and experiencing the world according to my generation's view. It's true that kids do keep us young. For example, I learned something new from my daughter-- how to play scrabble and word games using my smart phone.
Now you might think this is not new or novel, but to me it was. Over the course of several days we played a game of scrabble, and I have to admit she’s much better at it than I was (even though I did give her a run for her money!). In the process, I also learned that she scored higher points than I did because she was focused on playing a word that earned the most points, while I was focused on playing the most letters per word. I played to create longer words that would give us both more opportunities to form words in the future. She played to score points. She won- I lost.
Perhaps the lesson is to focus on the here and now, on what's in front of you, instead of looking ahead for opportunities that may not materialize.
Now we’re on our next game, but the fun doesn’t end there. She showed me that one can play a word game with an anonymous opponent “out there, somewhere.” So now I’m playing 2 games of scrabble, one with Lili and the other with "Doobus." In the meantime, I've also researched scrabble playing strategies online, and stopped at Barnes & Noble to pick up a Scrabble Players Dictionary so that I can expand my vocabulary.
I do hope that I’m building lots of dendrites in my brain!
