Daddy, I was Watching

My little grandson, 5 years old, is learning to play chess.  His older brother has been playing for a few years now and is quite good, but his little brother..........well........you just don't know at what point in any game he will just give up and say "I'm done" and walk.......stalk......stomp off to another room.  His patience quota on a scale of 1 to 10 is about minus 3. 

He has been begging his daddy to play chess so daddy set up the board and they played.  The next night, the little guy wanted to play again so his daddy told him to set up the board thinking he'd just play however the little guy set up the board.........thinking he was too young to learn the particulars.  Much to his daddy's surprise, the little guy had set up the board exactly right, even the king and queen were in the right spots.  His daddy bragged and bragged on him and my little guy said "Daddy, I was watching."

What words, huh?  "Daddy, I was watching."  How profound.  Also, can you imagine what else the little children of the world are watching?  What kind of home life do they have?  Are they being fed?  Are they watching mom do a line of cocaine?  Are they watching daddy on his computer all night long?  Are they watching you?  Just something to think about.............  "Daddy, I was watching."

I love you.

Memory:  I relayed this little story of my grandson to my hubby this morning.  He laughed and said he wondered how our little guy's patience would fare in a game of chess............looking over at me.  Then we both laughed for we had our own little "chess story".  The very first six months of our married life, we played chess.  ................and you thought we were boring all of our lives, but look, we played chess back when so we weren't as boring as you thought, huh?.................  Here's how it went down, and I do mean down.  We had an intense game going, very intense, I tell you.  I had only my queen left and he had his king.  I was winning or so I thought.  Yep, I was going to take that old king out!  Then all of a sudden, I hear "checkmate!!!"  Well, my patience quota went from 8 to -3 in one fraction of one second.  I grabbed my side of the board, flipped it up and stomped off to the bedroom, crying.  He hubby came in to tell me I was winning, but that he cheated (or so he told me).  But all the same, it was the last time we played chess.  Nope not going to do it.  But a memory.

Daddy, I was watching.