Car game

Dominic: "What has ears but can't hear?"
Kids in unison: "Corn!"
Dominic: "What has eyes but can't see?"
Benjamin: "Blind people!"
Dominic: "Well, yeah, but I was thinking of potatoes."
Benjamin: "But blind people makes more sense. I mean, potatoes can't even blink."

Pool games

I don't often get in the pool with the kids, but they love it when I do. The last time I went swimming with the kids, Makayla said, "Let's play harks and minnows. I a hark." She put up her hands, waded towards me, and sang the Jaws theme song, "Na, na. Na, na. Na, na."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Benjamin came in, soaking wet and crying. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"They're playing marco-polo," he wept.
"Okaaay. Why is that bad?" I asked.
"Because they kept saying 'marco!' " he bemoaned.
"Uh-huh. Why are you so upset?" I pressed.
"You just don't get it! I keep asking them, 'What is marco-polo,' and they just say, 'marco, marco, marco, polo!' "
"But that's how you play it," I explained, trying not to laugh at his indignity. Then I told him how it's like hide-and-go-seek in water. He calmed down, but sulked into his room. Poor kid. I guess some things aren't intuitional.

peek-a-boo en espanol

Rachel loves to play peek-a-boo, but she prefers the Spanish version. If I start off in English she says, "Ita! Ita!" Ok then. "Donde esta Rachelita? Aqui esta!" She laughs and laughs. And it is so cute hearing a little one try to speak Spanish.

nostalgia

I miss the pitter-patter of little feet as my children and half the neighborhood kids clomp around. They are running up and down the stairs, from the backyard to their bedrooms and back again, in an epic boys versus girls "war." One of the kids is supplying the background music of "Gangnam Style," blaring from his phone.

Wii facts

1. How many discs can a 3-year-old fit into the Wii gaming system? 5

2. Where can you find do-it-yourself Wii disassemble instructional videos? YouTube

3. What kind of screwdrivers will you need to disassemble the Wii? special order tri-head screwdrivers

4. How long does it take to disassemble the Wii without the tri-head screwdrivers? very long

5. Who is my hero for fixing the Wii (without the tri-head screwdriver) so I could exercise? Dominic

6. How long did above mentioned 3-year-old spend in her room in timeout? long enough to fix the Wii and then complete exercise routine*

*She didn't mind the timeout. Siblings kept visiting, and we heard a lot of laughter.

Parenting fail, gaming win

For those of you not involved in the gaming world, StarCraft II just came out last week. StarCraft is an exciting real-time strategy game from Blizzard Entertainment, and it's sequel was highly anticipated for a decade. Dominic bought StarCraft II the day it came out. He has played it in all his free time (fortunately he still goes to work and does his homework). The children love watching the game.

A couple of days ago Samuel asked if he could play StarCraft II. Dominic thought sure, why not? Let's see how it goes.

Samuel played the game. He grasped the basic concepts: he knew the controls to use, the sequence of events and basically what to do. He said he learned from watching Dad. Well, he lost spectacularly. The computer thoroughly tromped him. Dominic was sure Samuel would feel discouraged and not want to play again. Quite the opposite happened. Samuel was excited just to play. Instead of feeling discouraged at his loss, he was thrilled to get as far as he did. Not only that, but now he's eager to play again.

Oops.

Lightsaber vs. Princess

It is always interesting watching Benjamin (almost 5) and Lisy (3) try to play together. He is such a boy, and she is such a girl that sometimes I wonder why they even try.

This morning Lisy was happily playing in her princess world. Benjamin came along with his lightsaber and started fighting with her.

Benjamin made a slashing motion across her head.
Benjamin: "Now you're dead."
Lisy: "But I don't want to be dead!"
Benjamin: "You're not dead. Your head grew back, so you're undead - an undead princess."
Lisy: "I don't want to be a undead princess!"
So Benjamin tickled her until she laughed.

"To die, to sleep..."

Elisa and Samuel were quietly playing together, while Benjamin kept charging in and wrecking what they were working on.

Me: "Benjamin, you seem to have a lot of energy. What can you do to use up all that energy?"
Benjamin: "I can die."
Me: "Does dying use up energy?"
Benjamin: "Yes. Look at this."

He then proceeded to die in various ways around the living room. Some of them were very theatrical, and they were all noisy. Afterwards, he was able to quietly play with his siblings without destroying their work. I guess he really knew what was best for himself.

Overheard

This morning I overheard the kids playing:

"It was Grandma! She's evil," said Samuel.

"That would explain what happened to poor Grandpa!" said Benjamin.

I never did find out what they were playing. More importantly, what happened to "poor Grandpa?"

Blow darts

Yesterday morning we drove around looking at yard sales and listening to NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" We heard a funny story about an elderly woman who was arrested for shooting blow darts at people walking past her house. When asked why she did it, she said she liked to hear people say "Ow!"

Thus began a very silly game of all the boys (including my husband) pretending to blow darts at each other and lots of "ow's" abounding. At one point Samuel kept "shooting" darts at Benjamin, who was getting very frustrated. In a commanding voice Dominic yelled back, "Let Benjamin shoot darts at you!"

I started laughing hysterically. Dominic just looked at me and sighed, "Oh, that's gonna go on the blog."

~~~

Oh, it gets better. Today on the way home from church the boys started "shooting" darts again, which made Rachel laugh. The "shooting" didn't last long, and Rachel began to fuss. Ever the helpful dad, Dominic called out, "You need to start shooting darts at Rachel again to make her laugh!" They did, and she did :)

More questing

Bedtime can be a chore, trying to get the kids to actually get ready for bed. In a stroke of genius, I told the kids that their quest was to put on their pajamas. They did it with a minimum of reminders from me or complaining from them! The rest of the night was filled with 3 little faces periodically beaming up at me with hands outstretched for their pretend money reward, and "your next quest is..." The kids were in bed in record time.

-MR

Questing

My children enjoy playing World of Warcraft, especially the quests. Last night Dominic told me about something at work. Benjamin (4) asked, "Is that a quest?"

"Well, not quite; in the adult world it's called paperwork," I responded.

"But in the kid world it's called a quest!" called out Samuel (6).

-MR