Frogs and Bears

Elissa's first "tattoo". Yes that is Freddo Frog. No, this blog isn't sponsored by Cadbury, but if the money is right, my journalistic integrity is, shall we say, negotiable.


I was listening to a podcast (Jumping Monkeys , episode 8) today in which Leo Laporte described his 15 year old daughter giving him a power point presentation on why she should be allowed to get a nose piercing. Fortunately, this still is a long way away, but I can imagine this situation without too much difficulty.

While I'm on a slightly animal theme (Frog's and monkey's have both got a mention so far), I might as well go for the hat trick and try explain "The Bear Game". Actually, it's recently split, there are now two variants of the bear game, one upstairs and one downstairs.

The upstairs version involves a cave, which consists of the space between the spare bed and the wall, improved with a couple of flat mattresses. Essentially, someone has to be the bear (usually me, at least first go) and wait in the cave, generally asleep. The person then comes around and wakes the bear up, asking whether or not the bear is a "friendly one". If not, and I'm usually instructed to not be friendly, but rather "hungry" then growling and chasing are usually all that's required. Occasionally the bear is allowed to be friendly, which generally requires allowing Elissa to crawl over the top of me to get into the cave after which I'm allowed to turn around, so that the two of us are facing each other in the cave, with my legs hanging out the entrance. At this point various fictional people/animals/toys come past and ask if they too, can enter the cave. I've no idea what the criteria is for entry, but very few are allowed in.

The downstairs version is completely different. Elissa makes a house by lining up a row of toys in a line across one end of the "toy room" downstairs, with Isaac's door toy as the means of entry. Other toys and furniture are dragged in to make the rest of the wall, quite effectively dividing the room into two parts. We both have to get into the house by Isaac's door. Once inside Elissa says that there are three (or four or five, or ten, depending on what she thinks she can get away with) bears asleep in the house, and that we have to get them out. I then have to come up with "tricks" to get them out, one at a time. This is usually things like leaving a trail of honey going through the door, pretending to be the bears parents and calling on the phone to ask the bear to come to dinner, or hiding and making dinosaur noises to scare the bears away. The usual stuff.