"Pleeeaaaasssee Uncle Brock! Can you play a game with me?"

"I'm kinda busy at the moment, Caleb. I really need to finish this essay for my class. It's due in 4 days."

"But mommy and daddy just got me a new game, and I wanna play..."

I was sitting at my desk, on a booster seat, trying to work on a paper about early 19th century architectural trends in the Crimea region. Yeah, it was as exciting as it sounds, and having had an episode a couple days ago which sent me down to a 2 year old body wasn't really helping. But, deadlines are deadlines, and so I tried to discipline myself to stay at the terminal and peck my way through the essay.

Ophelia and Bella were chatting in the kitchen, and I considered asking them to play with Caleb so I could get my work done, but... I started fidgeting in my seat. I was going to go stir crazy if I sat still here for much longer. I looked down into his bright blue eyes. He'd just turned 5 a few days ago and Otto and I had only recently explained to him that I was both the cub he played with and the adult he called Uncle Brock. Caleb'd taken the news in stride and didn't really seem to care one way or another. He just wanted to play, didn't matter with who or what age they were.

I sighed, and gave up the fight. My heart and mind just weren't into the essay right then. A break would probably do me good, besides... its really hard to type with cub-paws.

"Ok, kiddo." I said as I clambered down from my seat. "I think I can play with ye for a little while. What's this game of yours, and how do ye play?"

He brightened up quickly and bounded over to his mum's bag, dragging out the board game and lugging it over to us as I plopped down on the floor and got comfortable. "It's called 'Trouble'" he said as his deft little otter paws made short work of setting up the board. "And what you gotta do is..."

Inspired by a RL event in which my niece discovers the joys of "Trouble" even though I didn't particularly want to play at the time. :P I ended up having fun though, can't be a curmudgeon all the time I suppose. XD

Brock & Caleb (c) brockomeles
Trouble (c) Hasbro