April 6 - Games

April 6

The weekend’s here! I don’t think that I that I have anything particularly profound to say today.  It was a busy day getting ready for the Easter egg hunt tomorrow.  Elli and her friends played school in one of the Sunday school classrooms while Kate and I checked and counted eggs.  Playing school was a new game to her and she is excited to try it again at home. 

When Nate got home we played a game of Guess Who Mix N Mash version.  Elli received this game for her birthday and it has been an instant hit.  It’s nice because it offers so much more variety than the original version (which I still love), and the fun character combinations keep their interest.  We had a pretty uneventful game where everyone had fun.

I believe that games are so important to the health of families.  They challenge our minds creating new problems to solve often increasing math and logic capacities.  They teach us patience; as a child I spent numerous hours playing Aggravation until I could play it without wailing when I was knocked back home.  Games help us learn to follow rules with a certain amount of decorum that easily translates to other situations that life presents.  Games can increase our vocabulary.  As I sit here Jeff is busy playing Word Mix on the Kindle.  Beyond all this, games are a fun way to connect with those we care about.  When we play a game everything else gets turned off and we focus on the game and the person we’re playing it with. Games give me a chance to see how Nate and Elli are progressing with basic skills, today I was able to see Nate using more complicated skills in his character eliminations.  Through games we share time and a common experience.  In a society that so often pulls our families apart in so many areas, games can play a pretty incredible role in maintaining some sanity and unity.  I think I need a little of that right now, so a round of Banagrams might just be in my near future … and Jeff’s not that he knows this yet.