Rules are meant to be....

 Broken!

Well, not really. 

My husband suffers from memory problems along with other issues. But he inquired about a game we used to play the other night. After a bit, I realized he was talking about Backgammon.

I'd put that game away as we tried it a couple of years ago and he couldn't figure out what to do and was always frustrated with trying to count and move his pieces.

I decided to use another tactic. I set up the pieces and we started. 

As we played I did not correct the miscounts or mistakes made in moving the pieces. It didn't happen a lot but I didn't see the point of making comments on it.

There was a few times when I could have bumped his pieces out and won the game, however I played carefully and decided not to take that advantage. When he was stumped on where to move pieces, I pointed out advantageous moves and he was pleased.

The interaction during the game was more important than the game itself. He was cracking jokes, smiling, and teasing me all along the way. I loved it.

This was better than time spent staring out the window.

We did this two nights in a row with the same effect. Laughter, joking, smiling, and engaging conversation. I'm hoping this will be sort of a thing we can do more often after supper.

We used to play the game quite a bit. We'd play 3 games with winner's choice of whatever we had decided on before hand. Sometimes it was who would do chores, or what we'd do for the day. The games were intense back then.

Now? Who cares if the dice are miscounted and the other half wins? 

The laughter is so much more valuable than a win.