All In

Recently my husband and I have started a new trend of playing games with each other every night. Not "couple" games (I know where some of your minds were leading), but actual games like dominoes and poker. With a kid upstairs sleeping, it is obviously hard to leave the house to go have some one on one couple nights, but this way we take a minute away from the computer and away from the television to actually interact with each other. I personally am loving it.

Last night per usual we busted out the dominoes to play another game. We at first started out playing Mexican Train, but the game goes along much better and much quicker with more people playing. So we started just playing the original dominoes game. I believe last night was the first night I won dominoes against my husband. He kept anticipating what I would put down next and if I didn't have a certain numbered side, he would remember it. That got increasingly frustrating. He's such a competitor, but then again aren't all males? Never the less, his strategy sucked and I ended up winning. Feeling a little confident of myself, I asked if he would teach me Texas Hold 'Em. It is his game that he plays frequently on his guys night out and I wanted to learn.

We headed down his "man cave" aka the basement to play on his home made poker table. It was the poker table that I helped make by crouching on top of the table nine months pregnant so my husband could fasten down the middle and it was my first real time playing on it. First my husband made me a cheat sheet of what beat what. I knew the jist of what hands were better then others what but was confused with some of the order like does a full house beat a flush. I also knew that from watching countless poker tournaments on television what cards really sucked (2,7) vs. what cards to sort of go with.

He dealt first (to teach me those separate rules of dealing) and I intently listened. To be honest, I was probably the worst student of all time. I learned the rules fair enough, corrected myself when doing big blinds vs. small blinds and asked a few questions. I just had no poker face and my mind half the time was elsewhere. I looked at my husband and beamed with a silly little girl smile every time I thought I had something. I also would just stare at my husband. Not to stare him down to figure out what he had or contemplate his next move. I stared because my husband looked so darn cute while patiently trying to teach the game to me. His quiet tone, beautiful green eyes and that one strand of curl that fell down across his forehead was just a bit much for me to handle. He was hot and had no idea.

Obviously with my lack of knowledge on the game, my lack of a good poker face and my constant distraction, I lost the game pretty badly. At one point I was confused when I thought I had three pair (which apparently doesn't exist) and my husband had a flush. It would of been obvious (especially with the cheat sheet) on who won that hand, but I was distracted and I blame that on my husband even though he has no clue why.

I guess what I am trying to say in this post is, have a date night. A simple date night in your own home where you actually see each other instead of focused on a screen. Playing board games, card games, etc., is just plain fun and if your spouse can teach you a game then why not learn? TV and computers are fun and all, but I would never trade them for my date nights at home. My focus is much better looking.