Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Bored games

OK, so this week I got the dreaded call from the nurse's office...no, not the one that says "We have to notify you that your daughter walked right into a pole and has a giant goose egg on her head..."  I got that one at the beginning of the year.  This one was the "come and pick up your feverish kid before she pukes" call.  So, the nurse might have had some attitude because it was only 9:30am on a Monday (but I checked and she didn't have a fever when she left to get on the bus an hour before, so hold off on your Bad Mommy Rant.  Of course she DID say she wasn't feeling well but don't they all say that on a Monday morning?) 

So, DD1 is sick with a fever but not sick enough to rest in bed all day.  What is the proper protocol?  Do I let her sit on the couch and veg in TV/movieland for hours on end?  And what about my healthy DD2?  How do I keep her healthy but not watching the boob tube all day?

I don't know what the "right" answer is but we found books and games effective.  Board games, lots and lots of board 'til I'm bored games.  Let's discuss, shall we?

First, every mom takes the "special" cards out of Candy Land to make the horror game end quickly, right?  No?  Just me?  Winning!

We don't have Chutes and Ladders and the HiHo Cherry-O game is so cheaply made my preschooler could have done it...and all those cherries can now be found in my vacuum.  Seriously, who designs a nursery school game with hundreds of tiny pieces and thinks "Perfect!"

Next, the enemy I call Memory game.  I've always hated Memory, my younger sister ALWAYS kicked my a$$ at it and now my kids do.  I didn't even like it when they camouflaged it in that bad 80's gameshow called Classic Concentration.  (Look it up kids, it was BAAAD.)  It might as well be a puzzle because I suck at those too.  But my kids LOVE puzzles and it keeps them quiet for a while...so I tolerate puzzles as a solo task...until someone asks me for help and then realizes I'm helpless!

The game of Sorry isn't so bad.  But my little one NEVER makes it through a whole game.  I end up playing for her and she always ends up winning anyway.  Trouble is kinda the same game but that bubble dice thing gives me a headache.
And these new ones like Pictureka, Zingo, and Cranium can be played only once a day, that's the rule, right?

My kids aren't old enough for Monopoly, Life, Yahtzee, or Clue yet, but I'll totally be ready when they are!  Those games are right up my alley.  Speaking of alley, why don't we own Connect Four?  I love that one too.

And I really like Uno, Skip-Bo, cards, etc...but with no boards can they count as board games?  (And don't get me started on all the ways they've messed up/cashed in over at Uno.  Just keep it cards...no barn animals, no weird machine spitting cards at me, no attack, extreme, or undercover, please!  Plain Uno only!)

So, what is your favorite board game and what one game will you never play again?  Comment below and/or we'll talk about it Thursday morning on The Motherlode with Laura Ford on Y105!