While Jim was away last week the boys and I got into a pattern of playing games between dinner and bedtime, and this was one of Gareth’s first major forays into the world of games. He and Daegan have played a couple of board games before—Cranium Cariboo and Snail’s Pace Race—both of which I highly recommend for a child’s first exposure to board games. Daegan and I taught Gareth some card games for the first time, and he loved Go Fish. (We played with sets of animal cards to make it easier). Once he had mastered that we moved on to Uno, and Jim told me that just this afternoon he and the boys played Uno and Gareth was able to play his hand properly, all by himself. Yippee! I grew up playing tons of cards games and board games, as did Jim, so this is a major milestone in this family.

We also tried Chutes and Ladders tonight, with some success—we decided to play until everyone finished. Gareth was done first, and Daegan shortly thereafter. Jim was doing ok, but I kept sliding down chute after chute, which led to lots of giggles from the boys. It took me three tries to get past the chute on square 16, and when Jim finally got his token to the end (square 100) I had for the first time just made it over square 50. Not my game! :-)

Gareth’s other major activity while Jim was gone was doing jigsaw puzzles. We have several large floor puzzles, as well as smaller tabletop puzzles. The boys and I completed a 200-piece puzzle over a couple evenings, and Gareth and Daegan did several by themselves (of dinos, frogs, sea creatures). Daegan needs little help now with puzzles up to 60-ish pieces; Gareth can complete the same size puzzle by himself if you help him do the ‘frame’ (outside edges).