OmegaMom

OmegaDad had no idea what a “cootie catcher” was.

The dotter, on the other hand, has learned that valuable tidbit of information from either kindergarden or afterschool care.  She didn’t know the name, though.

So she asked me, “Do you know how to play a…a…” and went into a semi-coherent explanation of what it did, on the order of “You make it out of paper and you color it and you choose a color and there’s writing on it…”.  Amazingly enough, I knew what she was talking about.

And it’s like riding a bike:  once you know how to make a cootie catcher, you don’t forget it; it’s a kinetic memory buried in your body somehow.  Give the hands a piece of paper, and while you’re talking, you make one, though you’re not sure whether it’s right or not.  That’s when you consult Ye Olde Internets, googling “cootie catcher”, and find the “How to Make a Cootie Catcher” page, and find that–to your amazement–this divertissement that you haven’t created in some 30 years has emerged–correctly–from your fingertips sort of like Venus rising from the sea.

This is because little girls, once they know how to make cootie catchers, spend a few years making them at every opportunity.

Making a cootie catcher while you’re talking with your dotter is a quick and easy way to awe and impress her.

Then you have to make another.

And another.  And another.  And you have to make mini-cootie catchers out of the trimmings off the big ones.  And your dotter will squeal, “Oooooh!  Oh, they’re so cuuuute!”

And then you will be subjected to (a) having to come up with fortunes, and (b) playing cootie catchers for hours on end.  In the Shoebox’s living room.  In the car.  In the yard.  And when the dotter (inevitably) loses one, you will be required to make yet another.

And then you’ll discover the joys of competitively blowing mini-cootie catchers across restaurant tables at each other, a la Spit.  (You do remember Spit, don’t you?  No?  Well, it has to do with folding a piece of paper into a nice compact triangle, and then flicking it across the library table with an intent to get it past the goal of your buddy’s hands.  You did this during Study Hall.  Amazingly enough, the librarian never gave you and your buddies detention for all those spirited games of Spit.  Perhaps because detention would have to have been served in…the library?)

I am eagerly awaiting clapping games, to the tune of “Miss Mary Mack, Mack, Mack”.  And OmegaGranny will be pleased to know that the dotter is learning Hopscotch, and will be dubious about the pre-taped Hopscotch layout, though happy it’s not painted in.

I wonder if Jacks are still a big thing with girls?  And Double-Dutch?