Sail Away with Captain Dad

Sail Away with Captain Dad

Our daughter beseeched us to entertain her.

"Can we do something, like play cards? Watch a movie? Go somewhere?"

My husband and I lay motionless atop the bed covers. It was Saturday. It was cold out, the skies were gray and it seemed obvious to us that the only reasonable form of entertainment would be to leisurely watch the back of our eyelids.

She persisted.

"Come on. I'm bored. Get up. We need to do something."

Somebody groaned. The dogs whimpered. They already were piled high on the bed with us in various states of unconscious indulgence.

"I tell you what," her dad offered. "Let's play 'Boat to Boat.' "

She stomped off, disgusted, while we erupted in unbridled glee and recalled the birth of the best game ever invented.

Her dad concocted "Boat to Boat" many years ago when our then 3-year-old daughter insisted that nothing would do but an activity that involved Dad. He is clever in the ways of creative play.

He taught her to hammer nails into a block of wood. She'd say she was building a fort, a doghouse, maybe a barn. He gave her a rod and reel and showed her how to cast a rubber worm. This worked great until the line got caught.

"Boat to Boat" came about one of those lazy Saturdays when the week at work had left him ready for nothing but some serious R & R. He stretched out for a nap. Katie arrived, wide-eyed and eager to play.

"Whatcha doin', Dad?"

"Oh, I was just thinking. Thinking about a nice long nap."

"Dad, I wanna play. Let's play something. Whatcha wanna play?"

"I have an idea," he said sleepily. "How about we pretend this bed is a boat."

She pondered the proposition.

"OK, we're in a boat. Now what?"

"Uh, I think we'll need some stuff for our boat. How about you go get us some stuff?"

She squealed delightedly and he retreated to his quarters. She had an open invitation to drag everything she owned from her room to ours. Her dimples popped like those of a game show host, and she ran off to raid her toy box.

Hours later, I discovered them charting the depths of some faraway ocean. He had donned an authentic captain's hat. They were taking drags on huge plastic cigars and resembled a pair of mobsters who had just looted Toys R Us.

"What in the world happened in here?"

Capt. Dad replied with incredulous surprise.

"Well, we've been playing 'Boat to Boat,' of course," he informed me.

"Yeah, we call dis 'Boat to Boat,' Mommy. It's wots and wots of fun." The first mate snuggled up to the captain.

"And who is going to swab the deck, I mean, clean up this mess?"

Just like that, they both fell asleep, oblivious to everything except the soothing sensation of their seaworthy vessel rocking atop the deep water of some calm and gentle sea. It was the first of many "Boat to Boat" adventures where Capt. Dad always seemed to sail into the Bay of Lost Consciousness.

On that more recent Saturday, we discovered that "Boat to Boat" has since lost its appeal with the first mate. The captain now sails with a crew of poodles. Sometimes, the call of open water fills me with a serious need to join them. When they've settled into a satisfied slumber, I set the anchor, take a deep breath of salty air, and sail away, too. I agree with the captain. It's one of the best games he ever invented.