Most worrisome thing I heard all week, from Mandy: “Sister tried to kill me.” There were, unfortunately, no credible witnesses.
Most amusing thing I saw all week: Geralyn running through the living room and up the stairs holding a spatula heaped with butter cream icing, followed closely by a gibbering Samantha.
Really not much to report this week. With my mom and sister returned home things have gone back to more of a normal routine. I’m doing my best to convert Samantha to a life of video gaming, and have been met with some success. I gave her my old Game Boy Advance for Christmas along with some little Disney Princess game, but the game requires a lot of reading and she’s not quite up to that task. She also loves a game on Xbox Live Arcade called “Feeding Frenzy” where you play this little fish who swims around eating other fish (it’s kind of realistic that way), and I’ve purchased it for her so that she can farm it for Achievements.
I’m still looking for good suggestions for an almost 5-year old, though, so let me know if you got any.
We took the kids to the newly remodeled Children’s Museum type place on New Year’s Day, and predictably they had a blast. Some of the new displays are a little worrisome, though. There’s one with a tiny hidden passageway behind a fake fireplace that strikes you as kind of cool until you watch both of your children walk through it to a completely unknown area beyond (presumably full of scorpions and hyenas) and realize that you’re too big to follow them through the tiny opening. There was also another area where a big spiral staircase with a a kind of Jack and the Beanstalk motif wound around a central column filled with giant interlocking leaves and netting that kids can climb through. It was a really solid concept, but in reality it turned into a huge column of screaming children who have lost their way in the vertical maze and cry through the netting to their parents, who obstruct the stairway to alternate between shouting out directions to the exit and cheerfully snapping photographs of their imprisoned and anquished brood. It was quite surreal.
Also, this is my new favorite picture of Sam. The children are our future. Let’s teach them how to use a phone. Mandy, on the other hand, seems to have no problem and has moved on to classical piano music.
My daughter loved Feed Frenzy at 5 but has tapered off. Kingdom for Keflings is pretty good for her now (at 6) and maybe Sam would like that – it’s kind of a power trip 🙂 She also really liked Kameo; it’s rated T but I didn’t find anything objectionable other than some things that were a little scary for her and cartoon violence. If you’re OK with classic Bugs Bunny I don’t think Kameo would be a problem. She could play it without my help in an undirected sort of way (ie she didn’t care what the mission was) and it was fun for her.
OH! And how could I forget Lego Star Wars? I have the second game (classic trilogy) and she _loved_ that even though she’s only seen Ep4 and didn’t really care at the time.
Cool, thanks for the suggestions. I’ve been looking for the Lego Star Wars game for a few days and will probably grab it when I can find it in stock somewhere. Else I guess I’ll order it online. She loves watching me play the demo for that and could probably handle it.
We first had the xbox and found there were not to many games for the younger set. Our family has left it for the Wii. Mario Kart is my 5 yr old daughters favorite and she was able to play well on the first try. She also has some pet horse game that a good kid review. Although she also cannot keep up with the reading, she is content to just ride the horse around jumping things instead of following the tasks. The basic sports game that came with it is also requested quite often and she can beat us in tennis now!