Blokus, Star Wars and Super Bunny

The last post was too serious. I'd meant to write about some of the fun we're having at home, but didn't get that far. I'll try again.

As I mentioned a while back, now that Simon is of an age where we can enjoy some basic board games together, we've decided to follow the general rule of buying a new board game each month that we can play with the kids. For September we picked up a copy of Travel Blokus. Travel Blokus is just like regular Blokus, except that it is a 2-player instead of a 4-player game.

In it, each player has 21 plastic tiles made up of 1-5 small squares that look a lot like Tetris shapes. The players take turns playing 1 tile at a time on a 14X14 grid with only one rule about tile placement: each tile you place must touch at least one of your previously placed tiles at the corners, but they must never touch sides. The winner is the player who gets the most of their tiles on the board. Very simple.

Simon, Barb and I have been playing at least a couple of games a day for the last week or so and it is quite fun. Simon is getting better at it as we go along and has even developed a strategy all on his own (he places his biggest pieces first). So far he's kind of inflexible with this strategy, but it is a strategy and I'm pleased that he figured it out without help. (I'm also pleased that he learned the word "strategy").

Also, Simon's interest in Star Wars has hit a new high. I taught him how to search around YouTube and he's discovered a treasure trove of Star Wars related videos of one kind or another. He's also been playing the PS2 Star Wars Lego game a lot again because he discovered a YouTube video describing all the "cheats" and hidden goals in the game and now he's trying to unlock all the "gold bricks". Where does he get this from?

The other day I was watching TV and Simon was on the computer watching YouTube videos again. I noticed that he was watching this one over and over again:



I'd never seen this before, but apparently its been out for a while. I thought him watching this was funny for about 8 different reasons, not the least of which is how much I love it that he and I share obsessions. Here's another version of the same song with a montage of scenes from the movies and other sources. Oh, and here are the lyrics to the Weird Al song.

Simon still hasn't seen the actual Star Wars movies yet. Maybe over Christmas this year.

Gwen has been having fun all her own. She loves running around the house with a small blanket tied around her neck and carrying a "magic wand". She'll run in circles and stop periodically to cry out: "Super Bunny to the World!" I tried to get her to replace the word "world" with the word "rescue", but she wouldn't have any of it.

Also, Gwen has been much more interested in books lately. For the last year or so she's preferred singing songs at bedtime instead of reading. Lately, though, she's changed her preferences and we've been adding board books to the mix. She really likes Hippos Go Berserk, Blue Hat Green Hat and Dinos to Go. (We're big Sandra Boynton fans around here.)

This isn't to say that we've stopped singing. We still sing the same three songs at bedtime every night. They are "Yesterday" (Beatles, of course), "You are my sunshine" and "Hush Little Baby". I try to add new songs to the mix occasionally, but she's seldom interested. Maybe I can memorize the Weird Al Star Wars song for her...

Next up we have to prepare for Halloween. We let Simon decide on all of our costumes. He's all ready as Han Solo and Gwen now has the cutest little Princess Lea costume complete with fake hair-buns. Now Barb and I just have to figure out how to get her set up as Luke Skywalker and me as Obi Wan. Shouldn't be too hard. Plus... we get light sabers! Woot!