Otto: I want to play Halli Clowns

Me: Is that Colour Clowns or Halli Galli?

Otto: Halli Clowns. With the dice.

(I get down colour clowns)

Me: Now, do you remember how to make the colours?

Otto: Blue!

Me: That's right, we can make colours with other colours

Otto: Pink!

(Puts pink circle on pink circle to make Uber Pink)

Me: And what colours can we mix pink with?

(Otto moves the pink circle onto the blue face and cackles)

Otto: Yay! Now we clap our hands!

(We clap our hands and grin at each other)

Me: That's right, we can make purple. Can you tell me another colour we can make with pink?

(Otto gets the yellow square and puts it on a yellow square)

(I prepare to give up, but she objects)

(Otto picks up the dice and places them with the green squiggle and the square facing up)

Me: Oh, you need to make a green square. Where will you make that?

(Otto points to the place where the green square needs to go - yay! Maybe this is not such a dead loss after all)

Me: And what colour do you need to make that green square?

(Otto picks up a blue square and a yellow square, holds them together to make green, and peers through them at me).

Me: That's very good. Blue and Yellow make green. Now which tile needs to go here to make the tummy green?

(Otto places tile, then we do the "green tummy" dance of joy)

... and so the game continues. I quickly abandon my own player mat and focus on getting hers filled. We finish, pack up, and she demands to play again. And again.

The next morning, she gets the game down and begs me to play. Biggie offers to play but quits when she realises exactly how boring this game is.

Otto and I have a lot of fun with it, though. Well, she does. I suffer a little bit but it's nice to see her enjoying herself so much.

The next day, we are icing gingerbread and need to mix red and yellow food colouring to make orange. Otto sees me with red and yellow and announces, "red and yellow colours makes orange!"

That boring game suddenly looks a whole lot better.