Mekkers

Daddy and Sydney were sitting on the floor looking at a picture of the solar system. I expect the concept of other planets is a little out of her reach but she was gamely trying.



"See?" Daddy said, pointing at the various colorful spheres, "there's Mars and Venus, Earth, Saturn, Neptune..."



"..and Scotland!" Sydney exclaimed excitedly.



My maternal grandmother was Scottish. She did say she'd travelled a long way to get to America.

Just as Sydney is gamely trying to understand her world, we're gamely trying to keep up with her. The other day we told her it was time to go to bed when she told us she wanted to play a "short mekkers."

"What's 'mekkers?'" we asked.

"It's a game," Sydney said, and proceeded to bend over with her head on the floor and one leg in the air. This was how you played mekkers. Easy enough.

Yesterday I found my husband lying on the ground in the driveway while Sydney piled hay on top of him.

"What are you guys doing?" I asked.

My husband looked up at me wearily. "We're playing a long mekkers."

Oh. Mekkers is that kind of game. I see.