games
It is now officially autumn for some three or so weeks. The temperature hasn’t dropped so much, but it’s been a dreary week as far as the weather goes, and we’re all tired.
There’s nothing better than some hot tea and a game of Monopoly on such an evening. Well, the Monopoly — not so much.
“Do you want to play, Mama?” E asks.
“Not really, but I will.”
I give the same answer. But we both give in and play occasionally — it’s what family does.
The kids played with the dog a bit this afternoon -- a good thing, because the pup, when neglected, pouts. And a pouting pup does things like dig massive holes in the backyard, run uncontrollably once inside, bark incessantly inside or out.
Afterward, another evening over the board. This time, possibly the most luck I've ever experienced in the silly game. Everything with buildings on it -- I owned. I made my own son cry when he landed on New York Avenue with a hotel and had to pay $1,000. He literally fell into the floor and began sobbing.
"Buddy, calm down. It's just a game. I'm lucky this time." No help. Then I had an idea: "If you can pull yourself together, I'll give you a surprise." I was planning on giving everything I had to him and letting him finish L off, but her turn was right after mine and she landed on Tennessee Avenue (See that? It also had a hotel.) and had to pay $950 one turn after she'd paid me something like $600. She had nothing left: she gave me her little bit of cash and all her remaining property with a pout and said, "You win."
I’ve never really been a fan of Monopoly. After about the age of ten or eleven, I determine that there was too much chance involved, and I just found it frustrating. I never played it after that.
As an adult, though, I’ve come to recognize that there is a fair amount of chance in life that just sucks money from one’s bank account. Medical emergencies, car repairs, accidents, home issues, and the like — all unplanned, all expenses.
When the Girl got Monopoly for Christmas this year, I knew I’d end up playing it with the kids. I didn’t realize how much fun it could be as an adult who can simply look at it as a game that is a fairly accurate reflection of the frustrations of adulthood and, more importantly, as a game that can provide lessons to kids and time together as a family.
We played twice today. The first time, it was just the kids and I. It only took a moment for me to realize the value for a seven-year-old. He had to read, to count money, and occasionally make change.
L dominated us, and the Boy was hemorrhaging cash to a degree that he declared he was going to quit. We talked him down, but then K returned home and we set about to preparing and eating dinner.
Afterward, the kids wanted to play again, so we sat down as a family and began. I had a little strategy in mind that I wanted to test: quality, not quantity. I bought a bunch of properties quickly, then traded at exorbitant cost to myself three or four properties for the final street to make the orange set:
New York AvenueI then set about to building them up to two houses each as quickly as possible. The result: I was getting a couple of hundred bucks every few cycles of the board.
The Boy took a similar route: he ended up with all the railroads and soon was rolling in money.
Poor K was getting hit left and right: bad luck with Community Chest/Chance cards, bad luck with the dice (she must have landed on the luxury tax four or five times), and soon she was down to little cash and few unmortgaged properties.
Then I bought one more house for each of my properties and drawing $550-$600 from every poor player who landed on one of them. K finally landed on one, and it just about wiped her out.
Her reaction: she laughed. Our reaction: we laughed with her.
On our walk this evening, then, we were able to help E see that the most important thing in a game like that is just to have fun. “It’s just a game!”
The reality of life in Poland in the 80s was the line. The queue. People stood in line for everything. People stood in line not knowing why they were standing in line. A friend once told me, that she often ended up standing in the line just because there was a line. “If there was a line there must be something she reasoned and no matter what that something was it was something that her family could use or trade with someone else.”
Kinga told us of a story about waiting in line for shoes. “We didn’t even know what kind of shoes they were,” she said, “but they were shoes and we needed shoes.”
I had my own experiences waiting in lines in Poland in the mid-90s, but they were not due to the lack of goods. I mostly waited in line for bureaucratic reasons. When I would go to Krakow training my Visa, I would arrive at the office in question an hour or more before it opened to find the line already stretched halfway down the block.
What better thing to do then some 30 years after communism ended in Poland than to play a game based on this reality. That’s exactly what the game Kolejka is all about: all the frustration of communist Poland in your living room.
"Let's go to the airplane park!" There's a small airport near downtown Greenville which has an aviation-themed park next to it. The far end of the park abuts the runway, and it's a favorite for the kids: you can play on a fantastic playground, ride your bike around the paved oval circling the whole playground, and watch small airplanes land and take-off.
At the far end of the track, next to the runway, there is a significantly steep slope -- significantly steep for a toddler, that is -- and it should be a heart-stopping moment every time the Boy roars down the slope. But he does it so carefully, first going down only half the slope, then a bit more, a bit more, until he's going down the whole thing. He's so cautious that it takes some of the worry from both K and me. But every time we're there without a helmet for him, I think, "Drat -- should have brought that helmet."
After dinner, it's play time. First some family play with E's fishing game he got for Christmas. We try to teach the Boy how to let the swinging magnet slow so that he can lower it to the fish to "catch" it, but he has a more effective way: simply grab the magnet in one hand while holding the rod in the other. Simple. But eventually we convince him.
Afterward, we split up to have some more interest-specific play. The Boy and I head up to his room to play with his cars. Although we only have the sheriff character from Cars, we choose a car to be Lightning McQueen and another to be Mater and go tractor tipping, just like in the film.
The ladies, in the meantime, play Ticket to Ride, a train-based strategy game that enthralls the Boy -- trains, so of course! -- but is obviously too much for his young mind to comprehend.
The Girl has learned how to play dominoes -- at least, a version of Mexican Train from a set with missing pieces. She generally tends to place her tiles on the table face up because, as she explains, she needs help. I tell her that perhaps it's best if I don't see what she has because it's tempting to make decisions based on that knowledge.
Still, she does need the help. She often overlooks playable tiles and tends to draw without really thinking. And then there's her tendency to get ahead of herself -- a less magnanimous father would say "cheat" -- and slip another tile down before I play.
In the end, the Girl wins, semi-fair-and-square. I'm fairly sure there were a couple of times she played twice while I was wrestling the Boy. Then again, I know of at least one time she missed a tile and I said nothing. Perhaps I was desperate to make a decent showing.
Then again, when I draw these three tiles toward the end of the game, one can hardly fault me, I think.
The warrior comes, a vicious flanking surprise attack with that most feared weapon: the broom.
A fierce battle ensues: experience versus speed, Swiffer Sweeper versus broom.
If only all of our battles were so fun.
And surely, I’ll look back at the epic bedtime battles, the fussy mornings, the frustrated afternoons, and I’ll wish our current battles could return.
We’ve been struggling to get the Girl speaking Polish on a regular basis. She’s resisted consistently until a recent trip to Poland: two weeks with Babcia, including a week with cousin S, and suddenly, she’s speaking Polish spontaneously — to her toys when she’s playing alone.
And so we’ve reached a point at which the Girl can play Polish games, like Scrabble. We play a modified version: a small marker indicates both where to start and what word to spell. We work through hulajnoga (scooter), kot (cat), dom (house/home), and of course mama (mom).
It might be no surprise that the Girl won the majority of the rounds: it’s tempting sometimes to let her win to keep her interest up. (And it’s equally tempting occasionally to arrange a loss or two in order to help her learn how to lose gracefully.) This evening, though, she wins fair and square.