Family Fun the Geek Way

Even though BoopaLoop and LittleMan are old enough to appreciate simple games, they are very different in temperment and personality. Finding a game that appeals to both is very hard. Usually I solve this problem by creating a game that is tailored and shaped to their specific curiosities. For example, if we are playing outside, we usually do imaginary play. BoopaLoop is a princess, LittleMan is a soldier, and I'm the evil monster bent on destroying the princess. Fortunately, the princess is a mighty fighter too and can run away at light speed.

But this weekend, we wanted to play a game we could do as a family. It is hard to do imaginary play with two people trying to control everything, so either myself or My Mukor use these opportunities when the other is entertaining the children to play our own game, read books, take a nap get stuff done. However, this Saturday we wanted to do something together.

My Mukor develops video games, but ironically, we don't have any video games that are fun for our children. We don't own a Wii, we don't have the Lego game, nothing. Maybe we are afraid to share video game time with our children. After all, that day will probably get here soon enough. So, we looked in our boardgame cabinet to find something the kids might like.

I wish we had Yatzee. That would be the perfect game. BoopaLoop could roll dice to her heart's content, LittleMan could practice his counting skills, and My Mukor and I would silently compete against each other. But we don't have that game. Then, I noticed a beat up, old box with Heroes Quest written on it.

This was a game my big brother gave me as a birthday present years ago to keep me from crashing his Dungeon & Dragon games with his friends. The part he forgot was that I needed people to play Heroes Quest, so he ended up having to play with me - but he did get alone time with his friends without his stinky sister butting in.

Deciding it might be a good substitute for Yatzee, the four of us sat around the dining room table and played this game of heroes, quests, treasures and not-so-scary monsters waiting to be struck down. BoopaLoop's favorite part was finding treasures, LittleMan's favorite part was fighting the bad guys, My Mukor's favorite part was trying to keep his team from venturing too far apart from each other, and I loved coming up with fun and creative areas for the mighty team to explore. We had a blast.

Then we had lunch, an hour of relaxing time, and watched the kids play outside.

It was a wonderful Saturday.