The Gamble Life

Chess: Not for the Impatient

This is the board as it stood when Gus got to say "checkmate" to me for the first time.  He and I are learning together.  All our other games have ended in a stalemate, sometimes legitimately and sometimes I have to do a bit of wrangling to get it there.  I'm glad that I finally have a (very, very) basic understanding of chess, but it is not the game for me.  It is so slow!  Gus likes to talk through all his possible moves and the various possible consequences of those moves while I slowly lose my mind.  I like to make rash and dramatic moves and see what happens.  Losing pieces is mostly what happens, but on the bright side it speeds the game up and makes Gus happy.

I'm going to keep reading the chess books we got from the library and see if I can learn some fancy moves or patience.  And I'll keep playing with Gus since he keeps asking me to play, but I think a good chess computer/video/handheld game is going on MY wishlist for Gus' birthday present!

Why do I do this to myself?

In a moment of complete insanity I taught Gus how to play the card game War*.  Really.  And no, I do not know what I was thinking.  He was fooling around with some cards, and wanted to play a game, and I was telling him about how when I was a kid I used to spend a lot of time playing card games by myself. 

He kind of looked at me and then said "Like Go Fish?  How could you play that by yourself?" in a very oh-dear-my-mother-is-odd-and-possibly-fragile kind of voice.  So then I said, well, you know, I mostly played War.  So then I showed him how it was played.  And since then he's wanted to play every single day.  Oh my goodness, that game could not be more boring and soporific.  And let me tell you, I live for battles so I can make sure to lose them and hopefully move the game along a little more quickly.  I don't know who invented this game, but yikes, it never ends.

Our last game, with me throwing it in every possible way, lasted over 45 minutes.

*For those who don't know, divide the deck evenly between two players.  Each turns their top card over, highest card wins and that player takes both cards.  When the same card is played by both, three more cards are played face down and a fourth face up.  Highest card takes all cards.  This game goes on forever.

T-Ball

This post is heavy on pictures, light on words, because we are rushing off to do some Dinosaur Camp activities.  Gus had his first T-Ball game on Tuesday night and it was really fun.

I wasn't exactly sure what to expect since I never played T-Ball and have never been to a game.  I think by luck, but for the first inning Gus was in a great field position and got to field several ground balls.  In the other innings he didn't get the ball, but hopefully he will again in tonight's game.

He also got on base with both of his at-bats and scored a run!  It was really fun and I love how professional he looks in his uniform.  So, indulge this mom with her many, many pictures of her son playing T-Ball!

Making Your Own Fun

Gus is hard at work here creating his own Chutes & Ladders game.  He had such a good time coming up with stories for the tops of chutes and bottoms of ladders; most of them involved things like "having to give all the money from your piggybank" "breaking a window" "eating all the treats" and "getting an ice cream sandwich."  Also, he absolutely loved making the last row an almost impossible mission with three different ways to get sent back to the first row.  He also came up with a ladder that lands on the same space as a chute so while you thought you were jumping ahead you actually end up way behind.  It was really fun to watch him work on it; he spent quite a bit of time perfecting it too.

I have to warn the parents out there though that while I was really psyched to see him get into making the game and it was really fun to have him show me the board, the game is just as boring to play as the original.  I mean, Gus enjoys it, but I find it mind-deadening.  Still I highly recommend this idea for the next time your kid is looking for something to do.

Playing Games

I'm an only child and I spent a lot of time playing games alone when I was growing up (first draft said "playing games with myself" -- that just didn't sound right!).  I remember that Battleship (really, how do you play Battleship with yourself?) and War (the card game) were two of my favorites.  I also spent a lot of time shuffling cards one at a time to achieve the "perfect" shuffle and see how that would affect the order of the cards.  Hmm.  That makes me sound really strange, doesn't it?  Well, anyway!

We play a lot of games here, with Gus, but sometimes he has to play alone too.  I'm cooking dinner or nursing Abe and he doesn't want to wait.  Also, I believe amusing one's self is an important skill to have.  Last night after getting everyone tucked in for the night I came down to the living room and found Sequence all set up mid-game and just had to laugh at how Gus' game was going!  Let's see...Gus has two dragons and a unicorn (these are the "magic" cards) and his opponent (usually him pretending to be me) has three regular cards!  Hey, if you have to play by yourself I guess you should at least win, right?

I do dislike that after a certain age so much of playing involves winning and losing.  I don't let Gus win every game we play, but I do let him win the majority of them (and sometimes he legitimately beats me).  I know parents who always lose and I've heard of (but haven't met!) parents who never throw a game.  I guess competition is a naturally occurring situation; I'm a competitive person in many ways and yet I remain uncomfortable with it for my five year old.  Maybe because I don't want him to be sad?  It's such a hard thing for a parent to know your child is going to experience sadness, and know not only that you can't prevent it, but that you shouldn't.

But, there is something I can do:  I bought a cooperative game for his Valentine's Day present.  He's played it at a friend's house, so I know he'll like it.  There are a whole bunch of them available (I found mine locally at a really cool store).  It seems like winning or not winning can take the fun right out of a game (board game, ball game, whatever).  At least now we can introduce an alternative some of the time.  What do those of you who are parents do about competition and winning/losing with your kids?