I Bled You!

 It happens rather often these days. One of the boys will turn to me in public and proudly proclaim, “I bled you, Mommy!” Before you report me for teaching my kids the pre-scientific practice of allowing giant worms to suck on people to maintain the proper balance of the all-important bodily humors, hear me out.

Brian plays many different games with the boys, and they name the games together. Sometimes the names are real words, like the game Fast Bear, where they have to hold on to his shirt for dear life as he lumbers around the house on all fours, and the game Hi Buddy, which involves headfirst diving over Brian’s head off the couch. Some games just have nonsense words or sounds as the name. The one that has been the most popular for the past few months is called Bleh. In its purest form, Bleh is jumping out from a hiding place and scaring people. It used to just be done at home, while one boy or Dad walked down the hall toward the living room, pretending to be oblivious to the fact that the other two are hiding in wait behind the couch or the chair or the curtains to scare him. They then jump out with both hands open by their head and yell, BLEH! I'm sure you play this with kids and played it when you were little too. Totally normal.

The game has no boundaries now. Every place is the hallway, every structure is a couch or a chair or a curtain to hide behind, and every person is a subject willing to be scared for sport. After the blehing, the bleher will usually tell the blehed that “I blehed you! I did!” As if there is a question about whether or not a little mini person just jumped out of hiding and scared you. This is not easy to explain to someone in public, so I just make the bleh face back, with my hands by my head and bleh the boy who just blehed me, in hopes that the observers will see that he only means that he scared me, not that he’s into bloodletting. 

Clark illustrates the classic bleh pose.