A couple years ago, we hit on what is perhaps the easiest game in the world: making faces. All you do is make a face and ask the other person to guess what your expression is. There’s no score. You just take turns making faces. Angry face, happy face, sad face, confused face, and so on. Before you go home and try this with your spouse, be aware that it works much better if one of the players is a toddler.

With our oldest, this game worked like a champ. He’d occasionally get stuck, but that’s all part of the fun.

When our youngest was introduced to the game for the first time, it took a strange turn. First his momma made an angry face. He said “angry face” and did the same. Then she did a happy face. He copied it pretty well also. His older brother jumped in with a sad face that he handled admirably, and then I tried a confused face. That was a bit much for him.

After a few more rounds – happy, sad, angry, scared, happy, angry, silly – he finally made one up himself.

He put one hand on either side of his face, pressed them together, and said “squished face!”

He seemed surprised when everyone laughed. Then he tried again, this time smiling as he squished his face. “Squished happy face!”

Of course, his momma tried it. Then his brother jumped in with a squished angry face.

The game’s a lot harder now. It’s still fun, of course, but I’ve found that making a squished confused face is darn near impossible.

Who’d have thought it?