My first post for 2015 brings a smile to my face. We have returned from our Christmas holiday travels to the UK and France and spent copious hours travelling in planes, trains and automobiles. To which ‘The Pok’ (AKA my four year old son) quickly learned the game “Rock, Paper, Scissors” or as he calls it “Scissors, Paper, Rock”. The concept of one tool trumping another was difficult for him at first, but he quickly figured it out.

So as we were sitting at my father in-law’s place on Boxing Day he asked me, “Daddy, can we play a game?”

I duly responded, “Sure, what would you like to play?”

His response, “Scissors, Paper, Rock.”

I restrained displaying my disappointment at not being asked by my four year old to play Chess or Risk and told him – “Let’s play!”

As the first round went down it was a draw – two rocks

The second round was a draw again – two rocks

The third round was a win to me! – paper over ‘The Pok’s’ rock (I am not competitive – honestly).

The fourth round was another win to me – scissors to ‘The Pok’s’ paper

At this point, he was visibly unhappy at his burgeoning losing streak.

The fifth round produced a wildcard result – I was scissors, ‘The Pok’ was a fist with his index and middle finger extend making what looked like a knife.

I asked him, “What is that?”

He replied gleefully, “Daddy, it’s a ‘super cutter’! It cuts through scissors.”

I tried to explain to him, “you can’t have a ‘super cutter’, it has to be either a rock, paper, or scissors.” But it was no use, he invented the new tool and it was good against scissors.

Round six I decided to pull out a rock to bash this new ‘super cutter’. But NO!!!!

‘The Pok’ schooled me, “Daddy, the ‘super cutter’ cuts through everything – I win!”

Since then, several other tools have been invented to combat the ‘super cutter’. We now have the ‘super claw’ (crushes the ‘super cutter’ and all the regular tools), and the ‘super shooter’ (which blows away the ‘super claw’).

He is busily scheming up other tools as I write this (BTW – this is his game face).

Pok_RPS