What weird games have we taught our wee ones?

I went to the neighborhood pool with my kids today.¹ My daughter asked me to play “Cthulhu and Lulu.” This is a game we invented a few years ago; we pretend to be giant sleeping sea monsters and when the other people at the pool (usually her brothers) make too much noise, we awake from our slumber and splash the tiny imaginary town (usually by the pool ladder) into oblivion.

I’m Cthulhu, obviously.² She’s Lulu. We never intend to splash her brothers, but “accidentally” spraying them during our rampage is no doubt one reason she always asks me to play the game.

It’s a lovely game, which I love all the more since I made it up with her; but the thought struck me this afternoon, not quite as startling as the sudden realization that most all of us are beneath the notice of powerful forces shaping our destiny³, but a thought still forcefully striking, nonetheless.

Someday soon, my daughter will be at a pool party with friends and one of them will suggest they play “Marco Polo” and she will counter-suggest that they play “Cthulhu and Lulu” and all her peers will look at her weird and wonder where she learned such strange language.

Will she love me, then?

Or will she curse my quirks that I’ve passed onto her?

What weirdness have you bequeathed your offspring?

What odd games do you play?

1. In December?!?! Oh yeah. Desert life, kid.

2. But is it obvious? How many of you know who Cthulhu even is, honestly?

3. I’m thinking of COP28 and international agreements to mitigate climate change, but yes, was also hoping to allude to Lovecraft’s “great old ones.”