Mother May I ?

One person stands facing away from a line of children. He / She then chooses a child (at random, or in order), and announces a direction. These follow a pattern, such as, "Ben, you may take' x' giant/regular/baby steps forward/backward." The child responds with "Mother may I?" Mum then states "Yes" or "No", depending on her whim, and the child complies. If the child forgets to ask "Mother may I?" he/she goes back to the starting line. First one to touch Mother wins.

This may sound easy but things get interesting for the children when invariably someone forgets to ask "Mother may I ?" As a child I played a variation of this, which we called giant steps and baby steps. We didn't vary the direction or ask permission before we moved but somehow it amused us.