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Surreal games

I wanted to play a game with Amanda today while Luke was taking a nap. Luke frequently gets in the way of game playing with Amanda, since he tends to believe that all the cards and pieces actually belong to him, and the fact that Amanda and I are touching them interferes with his sovereignty.

Amanda chose to play Quorridor, a cute game involving mice trying to make it across the board to their cheese, while other players place walls in their way. I knew it would be a difficult game when she grabbed the die that was on the box and said we would play with it as well. "Amanda, there are no dice in Quorridor." "I know. We'll play with it anyway."

I tried hard to make up some sort of rules for the dice: if you rolled a 2, you moved 2 spaces or put down two fences instead of 1. This rule wouldn't really work for high numbers, but we never rolled any of those. I knew I was in trouble when Amanda rolled a 4 and said, "I get to put the red coach on the board!" The train fit nicely on the board, but she completely blocked my way to the cheese. This did not concern her, even though she also blocked her own way. "I can jump over the train, because I'm bigger than you!"

Eleanor actually plays pretty well at Quorridor, and is interested in following the rules. I guess have another year or so of waiting with Amanda.

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Lenise said…
She sounds like Isaac =]
March 18, 2009 at 9:55 PM
mathmom said…
Maybe it's a middle child thing---or maybe it's just the age they are.
March 18, 2009 at 10:29 PM
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