What Has Kept Us Sane This Season.

Countless hours of playing games.

"Mama, sit down on a couch and watch us play games". You don't have to ask me twice. What a difference a year makes.

Projects Around Here.

Two months of winter are behind us and we've accomplished quiet a bit. Julia and David are quite the pros at playing games; anything from Candy Land, Chutes and Ladders, Dominos, Go Fish and half a dozen of others. Julia insists on playing games from the time she gets up in the morning until she goes to bed. By now I know the sequence of colors on Candy Land and no wonder as we play it at least ten times a day. David joins us on occasion, although he's a bit bored of playing these games. (I need to find some more advanced games for him.)

We build and build and build.

I've "borrowed" a few craft ideas from Rambling of a Crazy Woman and the kids seemed to really enjoy doing these projects. For example, we played with some shaving cream and paints today, stirring them with a craft stick. David really enjoyed making this mess and ended up using his fingers instead, pretending that he was first doing dishes and then writing letters with his finger.

Taking an idea from the above-mentioned blog, I created an alphabet matching game. Using a cookie cutter, I cut out 52 mitten cut-outs. On one half of them, I wrote upper-case letters. On the other half I wrote lower-cased letters. The idea was for the kids had to match upper letters with the lowers ones. David was done after a few minutes as it wasn't much of a challenge for him. For Julia, it took a lot longer and she eventually gave up. Every time I open this game, she insists on playing Wiggles Matching game which is a lot easier and not much thinking is involved...

The kids also enjoyed gluing craft sticks to outlined shapes, numbers or letters. They were so preoccupied doing this that they created a total of over hundred letters, shapes and numbers during the course of a few days.

Even though David has plenty of notebooks to draw and write in, he prefers writing on little notepads (featured in the above picture). He collected a few of these pages with his drawings on them and he told me today that he drew them for his grandma. I am thinking of making a little book out of these drawings with him, so stay tune for the finale of that project.

The Game Is On.

We play games with the kids all day long whether it is Chutes and Ladders, Candy Land, Jenga, Boggle Jr. Letters or other dozen or so. So, why not add another one while eating dinner?

Seth and I are so sick of constantly arguing with the kids and reminding them of good table manners, like when they bang their silverware or blow bubbles in their water cup. Attempts to curb this behavior, like taking their plates away from them, were never successful. (Note: It isn't any better at lunch time.) At night, in addition to their bad behavior, they eat little or even nothing. (For some reason, at breakfast time they eat in almost absolute silence, perhaps because they're too hungry to cause a fuss.)

So, to enjoy our dinners, rather than argue with the kids during the entire meal, Seth invented yet another "game". He writes all our names on a blackboard and whenever someone misbehaves, they'll get an "x". Whoever gets 4 "x"s gets to take a shower! (Our kids despise taking showers). And the verdict is ... it worked so far. The most David received was 2 x's and that even bothered him. Neither child has taken a shower and I think the noise level decreased about 80%. That's a game where everyone wins.

Shall we play a game?

In David's world, stacking blocks with the intent of knocking them down is one game he likes to play by himself or with others, so imagine Nataliya's surprise when I took out the Jenga game to play with David.

Jenga is a game played with wood blocks, stacked alternatively three across to build a structure 18 levels high. Each player then takes a turn removing out one of the lower blocks and stacking them on top until the tower's topples. (Recommended for children aged 6 and up.)

Although I assured Nataliya that David had played the game with me once before, images of David swiping the stack from the table ran through her mind. How could David resist the urge to topple the tower before the game even begun? This is the boy who hides puzzle pieces in between couch cushions, takes apart anything he can get his hands on, and scatters his toys around to make it look like a hurricane came through our living room!

Well, imagine Nataliya's surprise when David not only didn't destroy the structure, but he played the game correctly. Not just correctly, mind you, but he played well... perhaps too well for the two-year old he's supposed to be. He was extremely careful not to disrupt the tower and was successful in placing each piece higher on the tower, even when the height of the game was higher than himself. His hand was steady and you could see the concentration in his face.

David carefully examines the game, trying to figure out which piece to move.

Finding a loose block, David is elated as he slowly manipulates it out of the structure.

Only after the tower fell and the game ended, did David show his age, swiping the fallen blocks around and laughing. As impressive as it was to see him play a game so seriously, it was a relief to see him revert back to our little boy.

Note: If you have an aversion to wood blocks, Jenga will be available in November 2007 for the Nintendo Wii.