Game Boys

~ Josiah and David playing Candyland

~ Josiah playing Parcheesi

One of the things that Josiah gets the most enjoyment out of at this stage of life is playing games. He is happy to play them by himself (aka, playing with God) or, even better, play them with a "real person" (me, Jeff, Grandma, Grandpa, or anyone else he can recruit!)...and recently, he and David have even been doing a good job of "playing" games together. Obviously, the rules are largely ignored when they play together; but as long as they're happy, I'm happy, too. :) Quite often, Josiah requests a NEW (to him) game; he wants to learn how to play ALL the games we have in our closet. The one that caught his eye yesterday was called Rules of the Road, and my parents gave it to my brother Doug when he turned 16. (By the way, Doug, if you're reading this and want your game back, I'll give it to you the next time you pass this way!) :) Anyway, this game is all about--obviously--the rules of the road; and I'm sure it's great preparation for learning to drive. But for now, my boys are having a blast simply zooming the little cars around the board, which is marked with streets, buildings, signs, etc. When that game first got opened, there was some disagreement as to who was going to play with it--imagine that! At first, I got out the timer and let Josiah play with it for two minutes, then David could play with it for two minutes, etc. Although in some situations I think the timer trick works wonders, in this case I decided I'd had enough of the timer after a short while...and since there were six cars, they could share the cars and play at the same time. Amazingly, they were both completely content with that suggestion; and there have been no arguments since then over that game. :)

As I watch Josiah's personality continue to develop, it fascinates me how intrigued he is by games...and I take special note of this because I know as I homeschool him, I'll be able to use games to help him learn--and make learning tons of fun in the process!

Writing about him playing games brings back memories for me of various games I played as a child. My overwhelming impression is that we didn't play games that often--too busy working to spend a lot of time playing games, I guess. :) But I'm not complaining a bit. I'm convinced I had a virtually ideal childhood, and I feel enormously blessed by that. I think the fact that we didn't play games all the time made them even more special when we did play them!

With my maternal grandparents, I remember playing Chinese Checkers; in fact, we now have that very old board that I played on with them. I also remember playing croquet in their front yard.

With my paternal grandparents, Solitaire was the big game for my granddad; he played it often and taught it to me. My grandparents also played Rummy, and I have good memories of my brother David and I playing Rummy with them when we visited there. (I also have good memories of them keeping little Milky Way candy bars in their refrigerator. When we got to their house, David and I would sneak into their kitchen to get out one of those Milky Ways--not that we were fooling anyone, I'm sure!)

With my dad, the big game is Uno. When I was not yet school age and was the only child at home during the day, he would play Uno with me when he came up from the office for lunch. When I won, he would pretend to be so sad and would pull down his lower lip and make a funny sound which delighted me. :)

With my mother, we spent so much time together doing a myriad of things; but I don't remember a game that we played consistently. I do however remember one time when she sat down on the living room floor with me and played Bible Dominoes, and that was really special.

The one exception to the "not many games" lifestyle was our annual week of vacation at the beach. During that week, we played games galore; and it was SO MUCH FUN! When we were home, we often played outside--climbed trees, played all kinds of sports, had a huge swing set, etc. We also had a ping-pong table in our playroom, and that was great to have. I certainly wasn't deprived in the fun department. :)

As I consider the difference between my growing-up years and Josiah's, I realize that a lot of this can be attributed to first child versus last child experiences. When I came along, I had big siblings to play with--especially my brother David who was 2 years older than me and was my best buddy growing up. With Josiah though, his little brother is only now becoming someone that he can really play with...and even then, little David's abilities for playing games are quite limited at this stage of life. So Josiah naturally looks to me and to Jeff and other adults to fulfill his "play" love tank. I can imagine though that as both of the boys grow, they will begin to turn to each other more often for someone to play with, rather than to me. However, I hope I always remember to take the time to play games with my children, realizing that it's not wasted time but could very well be an essential way to fill their love tank.