Games With Kids
So, I have this theory that if you invest in your kids really young, they'll someday grow up and want to play all the games you really want to play with them. Let's face it, Candyland, Hi-Ho Cherry-O, and Hungry Hungry Hippos are fun like the first time you play it.
I must digress for a moment and say that Chutes and Ladders was created by Satan himself to torture parents with a game that can literally go on forever. We finally had to make a house rule that you could only make a mistake once, that if you landed on it again, you had "repented" of that ill and didn't have to take the slide back down to the bottom. At the same age our kids wanted to play that game they couldn't count either, adding another level of frustration. I hate that game and when my grandkids want to play it I'll probably smile and give them money for ice cream instead.
But if you invest in them, they will eventually continue to want to play cooler games. We taught our son how to play Skip-Bo, and he's pretty good at it even if he plays with his hand exposed the entire time. Speaking of hands--remember, his cards are all face-up on the table--my wife told him to look at his hand so he could see what his options are, and he held up his right, empty hand and looked at it. Yeah, not that hand.
It's alright though, he's learning how to win and how to lose. He does my father proud and loves to bump people at Sorry. He doesn't like to be bumped. He's even getting over that. I'm not sure my youngest brother ever quite managed that :)
We've learned something else too. If we really hate a game, we send it upstairs with our kids and within a half-hour, it will be broken, destroyed, the pieces scattered, and eventually end up in the trash over a series of room cleanings.
Someday, who knows how many years from now, we'll cart out the really good games and my dream of a perfect, golden family moment will be achieved. We will play something like Puerto Rico, Talisman, or Terra Mystica. Everyone will be laughing, talking about all the wonderful things we did and learned that day. The sun will shine outside and birds will begin singing an aria on the doorstep outside of our 3,500 square foot house set on a hill overlooking a pristine green Oregon valley (or alternatively the Pacific Ocean from my cliff-side home in Anacortes, Washington--I can go either way there).
A man can dream.
I must digress for a moment and say that Chutes and Ladders was created by Satan himself to torture parents with a game that can literally go on forever. We finally had to make a house rule that you could only make a mistake once, that if you landed on it again, you had "repented" of that ill and didn't have to take the slide back down to the bottom. At the same age our kids wanted to play that game they couldn't count either, adding another level of frustration. I hate that game and when my grandkids want to play it I'll probably smile and give them money for ice cream instead.
But if you invest in them, they will eventually continue to want to play cooler games. We taught our son how to play Skip-Bo, and he's pretty good at it even if he plays with his hand exposed the entire time. Speaking of hands--remember, his cards are all face-up on the table--my wife told him to look at his hand so he could see what his options are, and he held up his right, empty hand and looked at it. Yeah, not that hand.
It's alright though, he's learning how to win and how to lose. He does my father proud and loves to bump people at Sorry. He doesn't like to be bumped. He's even getting over that. I'm not sure my youngest brother ever quite managed that :)
We've learned something else too. If we really hate a game, we send it upstairs with our kids and within a half-hour, it will be broken, destroyed, the pieces scattered, and eventually end up in the trash over a series of room cleanings.
Someday, who knows how many years from now, we'll cart out the really good games and my dream of a perfect, golden family moment will be achieved. We will play something like Puerto Rico, Talisman, or Terra Mystica. Everyone will be laughing, talking about all the wonderful things we did and learned that day. The sun will shine outside and birds will begin singing an aria on the doorstep outside of our 3,500 square foot house set on a hill overlooking a pristine green Oregon valley (or alternatively the Pacific Ocean from my cliff-side home in Anacortes, Washington--I can go either way there).
A man can dream.
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