a boys’ game.
Okay, so maybe it’s not a boys’ game…but no girl in this house is very interested in it. Axis and Allies is a board game that Mike and Emmett used to set up on the desk in Emmett’s room for weeks at a time while they took turns playing each strategic move.
Now, it’s online!
With the discovery of the online Axis and Allies (thank you, Jay) there is non-stop obsession with whose turn it is and what tanks were taken out and which country just died the death of the Axis.
Seriously, non-stop.
It was getting annoying and aggravating. Conversations immersed in nothing but who has an industrial complex and who took down an entire country with only how many men???
It’s high strategy. Something Mike and Emmett love. They’re playing it with Mike’s brother on the other side of the country and Emmett’s friend down the street.
It was bugging me the amount of time they were spending.
And then I realized…
wait a second.
This is familyness.
I’m so lucky that my husband is into what my son is into.
And that Emmett thinks it’s awesome to play this game with his Dad and his friend down the street in the same game.
And Mike gets to play the game with his brother across the country!
Relationships matter…even when they’re playing a game that seems crazy and time consuming.
Every relationship is different and soon time will pass and the days and hours and weeks of Mike and Emmett playing Axis and Allies will pass. We’ll forget about all these weeks that they couldn’t ever stop and that each game immediately bled into another.
I took a picture. I don’t want to forget.
Now, I smile when I see them playing and when they’re talking strategy at the dinner table…and in the car and at night when the lights are off and while making dinner and hiking on a trail and on the way to school and the second Emmett gets home from school and through texts and right before we leave on a date ….
Some day it won’t be the first thing they say to each other…
“Did you take your turn? Is it my turn?”
“Oh my gosh! You completely got the best roll ever. You took down my whole country in one turn!”
“How did you do that with only one tank??!”
“Tell me that strategy.”
“Dad, take your turn.” (one minute later) “It’s your turn, Dad.”
Axis and Allies = Familyness
Familyness is:
Spending time together
Being interested in each other
Smiling at one another’s little idiosnycrasies
Being committed to one another
Listening
Laughing
Creative Problem Solving
What’s happening with Axis and Allies:
Mike and Emmett are spending a lot of time together
They’re very interested in what each of them does on every turn
There have been many times that Emmett will emerge from his turn with a smug smile that makes us laugh and wonder what Mike’s turn is going to look like
They’re 100% committed to playing to the end of the game
A lot of listening to figure out their best strategies
Laughing over past mistakes and silly blunders (most of the time)
Endless talk over best and new strategies
So for now, we’ll hold on to the familyness that’s happening inside Axis and Allies because someday we’ll say, “Remember when you used to play Axis and Allies 24/7?”
And instead of waiting until later to smile and see how endearing it is…I’m doing it now.
For more familyness, check out Love 15….
4 Comments
Hooray! I love that you found a way to find this endearing NOW instead of later 🙂 I got a few of those annoyances to endear…getting to work!
Thanks, Brooke. It’s crazy how finding annoyances endearing makes it way more easy to be patient with them!
This post spoke to my soul. LOL! Jay absolutely loves playing with Mike & Emmett and as strange as it may seem, I do think it brings them closer even though it is only an online game. I love that they can connect even though they are physically so far apart. Thanks for sharing the picture, too. Just know that I see a very similar site on my side of the country. And it probably won’t be too long until Dex & Cal join the fun. 🙂
Amy, I agree 100%! Fun times. 🙂