The Hi Ho Cheerio Variance

Tonight we got the children ready for bed and had enough time left to play a family game together before they headed to their room.   There were a few options, but we settled on Hi Ho Cheerio based on overall enthusiasm for putting the little cherries on the tree and in the bucket.  

We got out the game, sat it on the coffee table and everyone started getting their cherries organized.   I should say at this point that should four players want to play the game we don't have a full complement of cherries so that everyone can have a filled tree at the start.   This in no way bothered my children, even my son, who very much wanted to cheat later on but wanted to make sure he had ten cherries at the beginning.

I told my husband to not worry about it.   He suggested in adult tones—the type that children tend to ignore—that perhaps the cherries were under the piece of cardboard on which we were playing.  I asserted it did not matter, and since I'd never successfully finished a game of Hi Ho Cheerio with the children, due to the stupid "dump all your cherries bucket" option on the spinner, I would welcome less than a full tree for a starting point.

My husband and I got our cherries and sat them on the little holes with the stems sticking up.   Then, as we watched our children, we noticed each of them doing their own cherry management style.   My son wanted the cherries to hang off the holes, "just like cherries do on trees" as he told us later.  My daughter wanted to make sure her cherries were securely held into their positions by putting her stems into the holes and underneath the cardboard.

And then as we were almost ready to start the game, my husband did something he was compelled to do which was followed by something I was compelled to do, both by our natures: he told the children he was lifting the board to see if there were any more cherries underneath and I rolled my eyes.

This yielded two more cherries, which were put into empty holes on trees and then our game began in earnest.    The children played well and knew what to do.  We not only finished one game, we finished two.  At this age, the children count correctly all the time without losing count.   And even though my son didn't like his spin outcome many times and tried to change that or the direction in which the cherries flowed from his tree and bucket, we had a successful game and everyone had  fun playing together.  

I'm looking forward to more family game time in the future.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was putting his cherries on his tree in Hi Ho Cheerio tonight and suddenly said, "one of my cherries was out of control."

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter came down for breakfast this morning, dressed and ready to eat.   I said to her, "I think you forgot pants."  She looked down, saw only underpants on, said, "oh!" and headed back up the stairs.

Fitness Update:  I ran four miles today using the Workout app on the Apple watch and the Endomondo app on the watch at the same time.   The Workout app collects heart rate data and reports directly to the Health app which the Endomondo app doesn't do, although it doesn't map the run.   There are benefits of both apps, so I'm not sure which I'll end up using going forward.