Playing Games

With the kids being home sick, we've had LOTS of time to be in the house together.  Like, 5 days straight without going anywhere!  The older two are still struggling - low fevers and weariness.  They've had windows of feeling better and needing to get off the couch, so we've been playing games.  Ahren got an 11-game combo bin of games for his birthday. It includes Chinese checkers, checkers, chess, mancala, pick up sticks and some other that I've never heard of.    While I was teaching him how to play Chinese checkers yesterday he said to me: "Mom, do you know why this game is a little tricky?"  My response was "Why?". He then informed me that it's because we don't live in the right country.  HA!  He thinks it would be easier to play if we lived in China :)

One of Annie's favorite games is "Operation".  You know the game where you have little bitty tweezers and try to get all the plastic parts out of the man whose nose lights up like Rudolph if you touch the sides while removing his body parts?  She loves that one and it doesn't phase her when the annoying noise is going constantly while removing his bread basket or brain freeze.  Anyway, it occurred to me that the game is outdated.  One of the body parts to remove is a pencil which symbolizes writer's cramp.  Who gets that anymore???  If the game were manufactured in 2011 they would have to replace that with carpal tunnel.  My kids will probably never experience writer's cramp...at least not like I did as a kid :)

One of our neighbors gave us a Foosball table this weekend.  It's actually 9 games on one table, but I'm going to hide the ping pong balls/paddles and tiny bowling pins and air hockey stuff.  We're going to use it strictly for Foosball if I have anything to say about it.  I can just see all the little pieces being strewn all over the playroom with some of them ending up in Maria's mouth.  The kids are loving it (only lasting for about 3 short games before needing to rest though).  Annie isn't quite tall enough as the handles are right at her nose.  She tries though and Ahren gets frustrated with her for not defending his goal well enough.

So, while the kids are recovering from this miserable virus, at least we're making memories with game playing!