Are You Game?

How many board games do you own? If you are a board game family you know that the number is probably in the double digits. If you are not a board game family, you have a lot more shelf space in your basement than I. I grew up in a board game family. Lady Di also grew up playing games and cards at the dining room table with her family. To this day I can only win 1 out of every 10 games of 500 against Lady Di.

Which brings me to my original question, 'How many board games do you own?'

I was staring at our wall of games in the basement last week and I wondered, "How did we accumulate so many long flat boxes of fun?

Most of the blame can go to our parents. They are the ones who planted the game playing bug in our brains. Somehow, we also got the bright idea that a new board game every Christmas was sane. That way we could play a new game every Christmas morning as a family. After the new video games got boring, of course. Which is the beauty of board games. They always play differently each time you play. And I'm not talking about the strange way the rules tend to change to fit the needs of the current rule keeper. And why does every game have a rule to gang up on Dad and send him back to Sorry land or make him Draw Four or force him to pay for multiple stays in a fancy Boardwalk hotel every time?

Anyway, our grand total as of last week was 53 games! Games with and without boards. Games with dice, cards, pop-o-matic die, money, tiles, spinners, letters, numbers, colors,blocks, clay, pencils, paper, sand timers, and buzzers. Games with lead pipes, revolvers, top hats, thimbles, pegs, pawns and pigs. Games that give us Trouble, Cooties, Ants in Our Pants, Mystery Dates and Free Parking.

That total doesn't count the multiple packs of playing cards, memory cards, flash cards, match cards,Uno cards, Star Wars cards, Old Maid, Go Fish, Crazy Eight, Bandits, etc.

I also didn't count the 14 games that are currently on our summer garage sale pile.

We currently have 9 games whose name ends with the letter 'O'.

We have 3 different Monopoly games. Original, Star Wars, and Wizard of Oz.

We have 13 Parker Brothers games and 20 games from Milton Bradley.


We have 4 games that require shouting something. Yahtzee, Jenga, Uno and Sorry. I don't think Jenga actually requires that you shout Jenga when the blocks topple but that's how I play it.

We have only 1 game with a large mat with large colored dots.

We have games for small children like Don't Break the Ice and Candyland. And games for big children like Taboo and Catchphrase. We have smart (N1S & SP) people games like chess and cribbage. And for the other people (Dad) we have Taboo and Catchphrase.

Do we really need this many games?

I don't think we will make it through this winter without them. Our weather has been so hostile that it's daring us to just try and survive it. So with no where to go and nothing on TV, we turn to our cheap family entertainment. A little bit of cardboard, ink and plastic to arm us against cabin fever.

So I'm back to asking, "How many games do you own?" "Is it enough to last the winter?" And which are your favorites?

Tender Is The Night

I recently experienced a tender moment as the kids were getting ready for bed. I have no idea what was wrong with the kids, but it just happened.

After supper, Lady Di thought it would be fun to play a family game before bedtime. The kids, of course, were all for that. With suspiciously little arguing, we decided to play Trouble. But after multiple trips up and down the basement stairs, we could find no Trouble. So LD brought up the game, Sorry. I braced myself for loud and vociferous protests and debate from the kids. I was greeted with tranquil acceptance.

I felt their foreheads to make sure they both hadn't come down with a fever that was causing them to act so strangely.

But their heads were cool so we kicked off game night. Now when I play board games I really don't care if I win or lose. I just like to tease, mock and get the kids all worked up every time I happen to move my little green Hershey Kiss playing piece a square or two ahead of theirs. My favorite thing to do is to start singing, 'I Am the Champion' to Queen's tune of 'We Are The Champions". But tonight, they just let me sing and dance and promptly sent my Sorry Guys back to home a hopeless number of times.

The beginning of the game started with Number One Son getting every good card available and Sweet Pea receiving the exact opposite. With her luck, I was half expecting SP to draw an Old Maid or an Uno Draw Four card mixed in with the Sorry cards.

But as these games always do, eventually everyone's positions on the board evened out and everyone got to send everyone else home at least once. But in the end, N1S couldn't get the right card and Lady Di snuck in the back door and won. Again, I gritted my teeth and squinted my eyes to prepare for "No Fair!", and "You Cheated!" followed by an airborne board and a snow storm of cards.

But no, only a long "Awwwwww", feigning disappointment and both kids searching through the remaining cards to see how many more turns it would've taken for them to win. They even helped put the game away.

Whose kids are these and where are N1S and SP!?

Bedtime snack was a rice krispie bar without any measuring or comparing to make sure each kid had the same number of krispies.

Then after brushing their teeth, the most incredible event of the night occurred.

SP asked N1S if he wanted to read her a bedtime story. And he said, "Sure."

I know everyone has good days and bad days, including myself. But tonight was definitely a good day for the kids. A lot of things went right. A lot of good choices were made. It all added up to a fun-filled, memorable night for us.

After cleaning up the snack dishes I went upstairs to peek in on them in N1S's room. They were taking turns reading the Dr Suess story, Sneetches.

Then I went to SP's room and I found out what she had done with her free time this afternoon.
Apparently, she had constructed a bath robe hammock for all of her stuffed animals.

Yes, this was a very good day.

That's Life

It's 8PM and it's still 93 degrees outside. We northerners aren't used to such sweltering temps. If we were to expose our pale, pasty skin to that kind of sunshine, our skin would melt off of our bones like the Nazis in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

So with Lady Di at a church meeting, I decided to have a family indoor activity. You may be saying to yourselves, "How could he imprison his kids indoors on such a beautiful summer evening?" Because I'm hot, that's why.

I sent the kids to the basement to bring up a board game. After the requisite ten minutes of whining, arguing and threatening over which game to choose, I invoked my fatherly authority and decided on the game Sorry.

The kids came up the stairs with the board game Life.

"Awwww, come on! Life takes almost as long to play as Monopoly!", I whined, argued and threatened.

I was overruled.

To start the game, Number One Son and I chose to go to college. Sweet Pea chose a career in law enforcement to start the game. Once N1S and I graduated we got to pick careers, he got artist and I drew doctor. "All right! I'm going to score some big bucks this game.", I rejoiced.

N1S pulled the $100,000 salary card. I pulled the $40,000.

"Son of a biscuit!"

We all got around to getting married, but it seemed that the kids were getting more valuable Life Cards than I was. They didn't seem to be paying out as much as me either. This game is just like real life.

When it was time for the kids to buy a house, they both declined. "Too much money.", they both declared.

Dad wanted a house. But he forgot to buy homeowners insurance and landed on the home burglary space and the tornado space. I was just teaching the kids a valuable lesson about the importance of insurance. And the importance of paying attention to the game.

After the house spot on the board, most of other spots are either Life cards (worth money), paydays or paying out for various life expenses. Sweet Pea's top goal, whenever we play this game, it to land on the Life card spaces that say, You have a boy, or a girl, or twins. She always wants to fill up her little car with kids. Well, the board didn't start out too well for her. She was in the lead, but would always miss the children spaces. Her brother, on the other hand, who couldn't care less about children, got all of the kid spaces, boy,girl and twins (boys of course). So his car was full. And every time he got a child, SP would look longingly at his brood and sigh with a pitiful look on her sad, stuck out lower lip, face.

But then, a miracle! She got twins! (And one of each, of course!) Then another girl. Then a boy. She was one proud Mama.

Not to mention, she was also trading the $100,000 salary card back and forth with N1S. No one seemed to want my $40,000 card and I couldn't, for the life of me, land on that darned trade salary space.

So with cars full of family, each kid made their way to retirement, collecting large paydays and Life cards along the way. They each thought they had the most money, so they both retired to Millionaire Estates.

When I had finally limped around the board, paying each kid each time I spun a ten or a one, I had only one option for retirement--Hobo Court. The board actually has Countryside Acres for the less affluent, but apparently I couldn't qualify for a loan their either.

So after paying off my student loans and adding up my meager assets, I ended up with around $200,000. I suppose I could live on that for a while, as long as I live a modest lifestyle and only eat one meal a day.

SP ended up with more money than she could count. She totalled $1,900,000 and was edged out slightly by N1S with $2,100,000.

Maybe one of them will let Dad live in their garage until he can get back on his feet again.

Life Lessons

Christmas has come and gone for another year. All of the packages have been ripped open. All of the stuffed animals have been freed from their nasty wire twist tied boxes. And all of the required assembly has been completed. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas Day.

This year, our Christmas Day got a later start thanks to Number One Son sleeping in until 8:30am. A Christmas Miracle! That was thanks to a late Christmas Eve church service. After church we let the kids open one gift before bed. They each opened new pajamas and slippers. Our kids are still at the age when cool pj's are an excitable gift. When Sweet Pea saw her 'Hello Kitty' slippers she gasped, "These are just what I've always wanted!"

They each also received new robes. Sweet Pea opened hers first and offered her old robe with the snowflakes on it to her brother. These turned out to be good gifts because they both were excited to go to bed with their new pj's.

The next morning, N1S, Lady Di and myself came downstairs and turned on the television to the Yule Log channel and waited for Sweet Pea to come downstairs before inspecting our Christmas stockings. At 9:30am N1S was sent up to check on (wake up) his sister. Sweet Pea came down and saw the empty snack plate and the note from Santa and went straight to her stocking.

She got some hair pretties and a Littlest Pet Shop TV game. "(Gasp), This is just what I always wanted!", she exclaimed. She got a lot of things she's always wanted.

N1S got some Star Wars playing cards from Santa and immediately wanted to play Star Wars black jack.

After the stockings were ripped inside out, it was time for the real fun. "Who wants to play Santa?"

"I do!", yelled Sweet Pea. And off she ran to pass out gifts. Number One Son had to go with her to read the tags, otherwise all of the gifts would make it to her pile. After a few trips of SP racing in and out of the room, tossing our gifts too us (luckily we don't gift any glass items) most of the gifts were distributed. Number One Son came in shaking his last gift. "Finally", he said, "This one sounds a little Legoish."

The kids both seemed to enjoy what they got. SP got a Lil Lovables monkey to stuff with her bear-stuffing machine. Yay, more animals!

Number One Son got an Eyeclops. This is an electronic camera that plugs into the TV and enlarges everything it sees 200 times. Both kids had fun seeing what their hair, moles and owies looked like up close.

After gifts we all went sledding and snowboarding until we were too tired to walk up the hill. Then I got the best Christmas gift I could get, a nap. "Gasp, just what I've always wanted!" At least it was until I woke up to raucous laughter and an Eyeclops up my nose displaying a nostril forest on the TV.

We ended our day playing the board game, Life, as a family. This was a gift from Gramma and Grampa Klein. Sweet Pea had a little trouble understanding about paydays and buying insurance, but she perked up when Lady Di landed on the space that said "You have a baby girl". SP kept asking which path to follow on the board to get children. Unfortunately, Lady Di was the only player to get a car load of kids in the game. This disappointed SP so much, she didn't really care how much money she had at the end of the game. All she really wanted was some children. I guess that means that Christmas really is for children.

Maybe, next Christmas.

Great Shakes!

There is something about winter that brings out the board game fever in a person. Tonight, Lady Di and Sweet Pea went to SP's girl scout meeting. Leaving Number One Son and Dad to fend for themselves. After saying good-bye to the ladies, I looked around for something to do. The dirty dishes were ready to go into the dish washer. The bills were piled on the kitchen island pleading for money. Or maybe we should fold the laundry. N1S had a better idea. He went downstairs and came up with our Yahtzee game.

All that other stuff can wait.

I couldn't pass up the chance to do something fun with my son. It's not often we get time together just the two of us. We got in a couple of games before bedtime. Yahtzee is a good game for learning math and strategy. It can also teach humility when your nine year old son beats you.

Our scorecards reflect the outcome. We played two games. N1S's card is on the left. You can see that I had lucky dice in the first game, but Lady Luck left me for the second game. Notice the quartet of goose eggs entered in my lower section. N1S was pretty consistent with his scores. He also is a little more creative with his zeros.

I've posted a couple of times mentioning boardgames. We are a family who likes to play games. I believe boardgames and card games are great ways to teach, build self esteem and have fun.

When I was growing up, every family get together involved playing a game after the big meal. We usually played either Dominoes, Cribbage or Uno. But we also had Sorry, Trouble, Monopoly, Boggle and Battleship. Sometimes Chess or Checkers would come out. My point is, these games are good alternatives to the X-box. They don't require electricity. They don't make a lot of noise. And hardly any of them involve killing zombies. There have been more than a few times that Lady Di and myself have brought out the Scrabble game and a big dictionary when nothing is on television. By the way, don't ever play cards or Yahtzee with Lady Di if you ever want to win. She can play.

I realize that playing games are not for everyone. For some people, board games should be renamed 'bored' games. But, if you are looking for something to do with your kids, even if you are not really interested in the game, you will be entertained when your children excitedly near the end of the Chutes and Ladders board to beat Mom and Dad for the first time. Who knows, maybe you will change your mind about games when you taste victory on the Scrabble board for the first time. In most cases the game isn't the important thing. What matters is interaction with family and friends. The experience is what will create memories, not the score.

What are some of the games you grew up with?