Fun 'n' games in the sock pile

I have to get creative to get the kids to pitch in around here. Last night I had a huge pile of socks that needed to be paired. Relying on Mitchell and Jack and Olivia's competitiveness, I told them the one with the most paired socks at the end would win a ribbon. It was a pink "Hello Kitty" ribbon that came as packaging with a pair of Olivia's pyjama pants. I had found it in the laundry room drawer...I didn't tell anyone about the exact nature of the ribbon, as the boys would not compete for a Hello Kitty ribbon....not at the start anyway, I just needed a buy-in.

As they got caught up in the excitement, vigorously raking through the pile looking for matches Jack turned to me and told me "Mom, this is such gay fun!"
Do you think he was reading a 1940's excerpt of something or other at school that expressed children's gaiety? Was he was making some sort of domestic comment...like only a gay man would pair socks? I don't know, he has seen his Dad doing laundry before though.

Anyway, toward the end, when the ability to find pairs was dwindling..I announced that finding the mate to a left-over was now worth 2 points. That got them searching drawers and under beds to find missing socks. When I take advantage of these guys competitiveness they can really get into anything. By the end of the game, when I announced the winner, they didn't care that the ribbon was a Hello Kitty ribbon..they all just wanted the bragging rights, complete with girlie ribbon as proof of victory. Jack won. He happened to be wearing two mismatched socks yesterday, one of which was the mate to a two-pointer left-over. He triumphantly peeled the dirty thing from his foot to win the pink ribbon.

I was the real winner though. ;)