Books and bridges

Archer's GT teacher found the perfect book for him to bring home for his nightly independent reading.  It's The Cardturner by the prolific Louis Sachar, best known for Holes but best-loved in Archer's room for Sideways Arithmetic from Wayside School.

The Cardturner is about a boy who plays bridge with his blind uncle and aims to compete in the national championships.  The first detail about his day that Archer volunteered to me this afternoon was that Ms. Haynes gave him this book to bring home.  The second detail was the book's basic premise.  And the third details was that certain sections are marked with a whale.

Archer explained that the protagonist uses whales as markers because he once "zoned out" while reading a book whenever the author started giving facts about whales.  (The book was Moby Dick, as I ascertained from Archer later.)  So he decided to mark the passages in his book that are about how to play bridge with whales, so that readers who might zone out during those parts can easily skip them.

Naturally those parts are Archer's favorites, along with any description of a game.  Just now he skipped into the room after doing his reading for the night laughing hysterically at a round of bidding by the protagonist's amateur friends -- the first bid is made out of order, and then the protagonist's partner responds to his bid of 1 heart with 6 spades.  It's enough to make Archer helpless with amusement.

I'm always on the lookout for books that I think will jibe with Archer's game-focused, school-centric, and stat-obsessed worldview.  It's great to be introduced to a new one, and to know that some of his teachers can identify texts to which he's likely to respond.

Trumps

Archer has recently shown a keen interest in the game of bridge.  He has read the basics in books about card games that he studies, and he frequently asks to see the bridge column in the daily paper.  So for his birthday, I suggested to his grandparents that they get him a book on bridge.

When his schoolwork started coming home with bridge layouts and bidding sequences drawn on the back, I knew he was reading the book and absorbing some of the intricacies of the game.  The grandparents' visit this week turns out to be a good chance for him to play for the first time, since there would be three other people around with some experience and knowledge.

I'm a rank amateur when it comes to bridge; I enjoy the game, but it frightens me because of the ever-present potential for letting someone else down.  When we dealt out the first hands, with me partnering Archer at his suggestion, I wondered if we'd end up in situations I didn't understand or couldn't cope with.

Turns out we had three very interesting hands, with Archer acting as declarer twice (and therefore playing both his and my hands) and us defending once.  I coached Archer through each hand with suggestions on what suit and rank to lead when, and reminders to keep count of the trumps.  As he executed a perfect back-and-forth from his hand to the dummy in order to mesh high cards in both hands, I could see the light bulbs going off in his head and the excitement of the elegant pattern and rhythm in his demeanor.  When he overtrumped a trick his grandparents were counting on, he was jumping out of his seat with the thrill.  The hands he played were not slam dunks by any means, but we accumulated overtricks on both of them, and we set our opponents on the only hand where we played defense.  I could tell that he felt most challenged when it wasn't clear how to lead when we were out of guaranteed tricks, but heck, that's when I'm most at sea, too.

I think he'll be good at the game, and really enjoy it as well.  When the pattern is evident and the cards are flowing from one side of the table to the other, when you can see several moves ahead and your opponents' hands contain few surprises, it's highly satisfying.  And when you can pull out some surprises of your own and find tricks where none seem to be hiding, it can be a thrill.  Archer should be able to hold a lot of the detail that bidding and play reveal in his head as the hands unfold.  If he can find some people to practice with, he might have found another gaming obsession.

Fools and their land are soon parted

I've never met any other family who owned the party game Wise and Otherwise. But it's become a legend in ours. In this game, someone reads out the first half of an old ethnic saying, viz., "There's an old Polish saying: If you knock three times with no answer ..." Then everybody writes down a more or less plausible conclusion to the saying, which is then combined with the real ending and read out for votes Dictionary-style.

The importance of this game to our family comes from a memorable occasion in which the saying to be completed was "Darkness conceals ..." My older brother's answer, "... the fool's shoddy workmanship," is a masterpiece of Wise and Otherwise misplay. Note the reliance on a proverbial construct, the fool; note, too, that the word "workmanship" is not only odd, but is judged incapable of standing on its own without the strangely archaic adjective "shoddy." Put it all together, and "Darkness conceals the fool's shoddy workmanship" has, improbably enough, become an actual saying in our household.

As the caretakers of the Wise and Otherwise game, we were implored by this reunion's organizers (my parents) to bring it along, and tonight we broke it out for an hour's hilarious play. You know a game is going well when the very first candidate read for our votes, "When the rats have enough food, there be nothing left in Mother Hubbard's cupboard" could not be completed without the poor reader cracking up. (Yep, that's a Dwayne classic too my mistake; it was my sister-in-law playing on his team, clearly affected by decades of close contact with the master, from the affected "there be" verb to the allusion to a nursery rhyme probably unknown in the country of this saying's origin.

Pretty soon, every time someone mentioned "fool," "land," "wisdom," or "piled high like the snows in winter," the room broke up. I don't know whether this game plays this well for all gatherings, but for our family, it's a guaranteed good time.

Window to another world

The best thing that happened to our kids this year -- at least if you asked them -- is their discovery of gaming videos on YouTube.  Forty-part walk-throughs of entire games with commentary ... speed runs racing through games from start to finish in the shortest time possible ... special levels, secrets, or extraordinary achievements.  It's like an endless documentary history of the worlds that so fascinate them.

I think the attraction for Archer, judging from the tidbits he shares excitedly with us while he's watching, is that these are environments with very clear goals, very clear rules and very clear exceptions.  This is his version of fiction, and in a limited way, he ascribes motivations and even minor emotions to the in-game characters and to the players.  Every so often he emerges from the back of the house to tell us about what he's seen, and it's all about how you get from world to world, or how many coins were accumulated, or where the infinite one-ups were to be found, or what boss is the most difficult.  There's a story there, albeit one starved of most emotional color and nuance, about how to get from point A to point B and what the notable achievements are along the way.

Lately they've been working their way through the various Pokemon games.  Cady Gray tends to favor the more colorful Mario game commenters -- she comes out to tell us about something hilarious that the player said, rather than what was happening in the game -- while Archer goes for a just-the-facts style from his players.  But she and Archer are on the same page when they watch Pokemon game walk-throughs.  They follow the accumulation of Pokemon, their leveling-up and evolution, and the journey to the various arenas to battle other trainers.  It's a quest combined with a sport, with collecting, and with an exercise in taxonomy.  Both of them seem equally invested in the story and the strategy.  I have to conclude that the combination of elements hits their mutual sweet spots.  There's memorization, strategy, infinite recombination, sorting, and scorekeeping.

When they watch the games together, Cady Gray asks questions about why things happen, and Archer answers with statements of what happened.  An example: Tonight they were watching a Sonic the Hedgehog speed run, and Cady Gray asked whether Sonic can ever get rings back after he loses them.  Archer responded: "I don't think he can, and if he touches an enemy when he has no rings, he immediately loses a life."  There's something there about the difference between the way an autistic and neurotypical kid interact with the world -- one wanting to interrogate the way it works, one wanting to memorize the rule book.

A new obsession

A few weeks ago, we checked out a library book on backgammon for Archer. A few nights ago, he suddenly appeared in the living room after bedtime with a piece of cut-out paper in his hand -- a doubling cube he had drawn and wanted me to tape together. The boy clearly wanted to play backgammon. And so today, while Noel and Cady Gray went to Despicable Me, I took Archer to Target and bought him a backgammon set.

There's no shortage of games to which Archer could happily devote a lifetime of immersing himself in strategy. And there's nothing he'd rather do. Every time we go to the library, every time we pack books into a backpack for him to take to church or on a trip, he asks automatically, "Did you get a chess book?" With the same single-mindedness, he endlessly turns the pages of books on card games, dominoes, marbles, and pinball.

Games are a structured, rule-governed environment in which Archer can interact with anyone -- his peers, adults, family members. He is drawn to them as if by an irresistible force of gravity. I'd be surprised if his love for games didn't last a lifetime. I just hope he's able to achieve both the socialization and the mastery that he craves.

Cards on the table

My parents arrived this afternoon for a few days with the grandchildren. Right now they're participating in a grand Uno tournament enthusiastically narrated by Archer. Granny Lou just won her first game with Cady Gray's help, and Archer has battled back from two games down to tie Papa 4-4.

The clear rules and bounded structure of games appeal strongly to Archer's autistic mind. He is able to adjudicate any question about procedure with authority. And the "storyline" of the game seems to delight him. Motivations and emotional responses which might remain murky or inexplicable in real life become transparent in a game: good fortune and bad are well defined, and the appropriate emotions for each are plain.

And so my sometimes retiring, sometimes robotic boy becomes wildly animated while playing games. He grins, dances, shouts, sinks to the ground, and loudly rehearses the twists and turns of the game's and match's course to whoever will listen. It's a story with a plot that makes perfect sense and an appealingly granular -- often even numerical -- dramatic arc.

Someone along the line -- I think it was Noel -- started a little tradition of snapping the last remaining card in his hand after announcing "Uno." Now Archer does it with delight, and Cady Gray reaches over to flip Granny Lou's card for her when appropriate. There's something extravagant about the gesture: an expression of delight, a challenge to the other players, and nothing strictly necessary or prescribed in the rules. As these little extras accumulate, they sketch out more detail in this stripped-down game world. With enough time and tradition, the game might become as complex as parts of life. And perhaps Archer will have the tools it takes to navigate in such circumstances.

Game club

Archer would play games with us all day and all night if we'd let him. He's chess-obsessed -- give him a chess book and he'll read for hours -- but Monopoly, Settlers of Catan, or a book of marble, domino, or card games are almost as absorbing. In fact, not infrequently he draws his own game boards and cuts out money and cards, and a major subject of conversation is game rules and strategy.

I asked him last week if he'd like me to contact any of the kids in his school's chess club to see if they wanted to meet for matches, and one of the children he mentioned is the daughter of one of my university colleagues. We got them together today for an hour of chess -- two matches. In the first, Archer finally checkmated her when she had only a king left and he had a king and rook. In the second, they played to stalemate in about twenty minutes.

Last week I ran into a former student in a coffee shop, passing through town with her partner on her way back to her job in another town. She has worked with Archer before, and asked about him; the conversation turned to his love of games, and I mentioned Settlers. Turns out the two of them play quite a bit and have all the expansion packs. I enlisted them to come play with Archer when they're back in town for an extended session. There's only so much he can get out of playing a two-person game with me; what's more, I have no idea what I'm doing.

I would love to find Archer a regular game group to play with. Not for the first time, I've thought that we ought to introduce him to Magic-type collectible card games, which he might be able to play with other kids at the bookstore or the library. A game provides a structure to the social occasion of playing with his peers. Today while playing chess, he had intermittent conversations with his opponent about the rules, about whether the game has reached its end, about setting up the board. Archer is rarely focused enough on a common task to have an interaction with another kid; he tends to ignore their conversational proffers and wander off on his own or to the company of adults. I'm impressed that he sat across from a nine-year-old for a full hour today; words might not have been plentiful, but the two were completely engaged with each other and the chess board. I was not part of the equation.

I'd like to see Archer in more situations like that with kids his own age. His speech therapist told us this year that he won't make an effort to play with his classmates during recess unless he sees her watching -- then he approaches other kids eagerly in order to get gold stars from the observer. But nobody had to bribe him with a gold star to play chess for an hour with Miriam. With a structure in which he's already intrinsically interested, with scorekeeping and points and strategy and the reduction of the environment's unwritten rules to clear, written, and unambiguous ones, he can really be a part of a group of his peers. If I could find the group and the venue, I'd have him there every time the doors were open.

This kind of blank adventure happens all the time

Today's post about a scarf for the next phase of life is at Toxophily.

I spent the afternoon playing Settlers of Catan with Archer. The game is second in his affections only to chess; he spends hours playing it either in its full-fledged board game version or on Noel's iPod, and that's accompanied by more hours reciting the rules to us. A friend responded to my Twitter updating mentioning the game by calling it a "gateway drug." And that sounds fine to me. If Archer's going to get hooked on anything, it might as well be the infinite variations and branching decision paths of strategy games. Does anybody have suggestions for a next step down this road?

Romance of the mundane

On a recent visit to the public library, Cady Gray and Archer discovered candystand.com, a website of free games. Since then they've spent hours playing card games and puzzles.

But the one Cady Gray keeps going back to is "What's For Dinner?" Now, to me, this is like a stand-up comedian's hyperbolic parody of the most boring electronic pursuit ever. It's virtual cooking. You peruse a recipe, gather the specified items from a pantry (can you mouse over everything to find the matching words before time runs out?), cut and peel vegetables by moving your mouse, and watch a timeline tick by so you can click on the ingredients to add to the frying pan at the right instant. There's no initiative or problem-solving. It's all the glory of being a prep cook combined with all the creativity of following the directions on the back of a Jell-O package.

Why does she love it? Well, when you're five, simply performing actions in the sequence dictated can be satisfying. And lately I've been thinking that I need more of that kind of satisfaction in my life. Since Noel has been gone, I've prepared food for my children at home four out of five nights. Not bad for someone who never cooks when her husband is out home. Since it's a novel chore, I get a much bigger kick out of it than the degree of difficulty warrants. Let's face it: I'm basically doing one level above the minimum required not to have my kids taken away from me by the state.

But just in the same way making my own garments gives me an absurd hit of joy over and above the pleasure of knitting and the comfort of being clothed, preparing dinner -- when you don't have to do it all the time -- makes me feel like a grown-up. Today I wore a sweater I made, solved an internet problem, and put hot food in front of my children. It might not be much -- it might not even be very hard -- but I felt like a superhero.

Clash of the titans

Archer received a Monopoly game with electronic banking for Christmas, and ever since, he's been obsessed with the classic board game. He plays on Noel's iPod touch every day, and he made his own version with a paper board and cut-out Community Chest and Chance cards called "Monopoly With Lower Prices."

On Monday he asked me if he and I could play a Monopoly game on Saturday. I said sure. Since then he's reminded me of our board game date several times.

This morning he bounced into the kitchen after breakfast. "Mom," he said, "are you really good at Monopoly?"

"I'm okay, I guess," I replied.

"Well, I seem like a master at Monopoly," he boasted. Then he bounced off down the hall.

In a few seconds he had returned, eyes bright with excitement.

"This is going to be like the Super Bowl!" he enthused.

Christmas haul: A critical review

We took some chances this year on gifts for the kids, and I think we hit the jackpot. After playtesting some of the items this afternoon, here's a brief report of our experience.

Quirkle

This domino-esque tile game was the first one Cady Gray wanted to play. You play tiles in lines that have one of two attributes in common: either the same shape (of six possible), or the same color (of six possible). There's only about one page of instructions, and a helpful diagram of a sample game. We played without keeping track of points, but the kids caught on to the high-scoring moves (play tiles that count in more than one line, complete a set of six and earn a bonus) very quickly.

I love a lot of things about this game. There's no board, just a bag of tiles (substantial, brightly-colored, and well-made). Strategy is important but not complicated. Scoring is intuitive. In short, it's the perfect game for a range of ages. Both the five-year-old and the eight-year-old were competitive with me almost immediately. (I started off playing with Cady Gray while Archer was immersed in his favorite gift -- a handheld electronic chess game -- but after fifteen minutes he wandered over and started pestering me about playing the next game.) This one's going to have good staying power.

Doodle Dice

Another game whose easily-grasped rules makes it playable for a wide range of ages. In a Yahtzee-esque setup, the player rolls six dice, each with six simple symbols (angle, curve, line, squiggle, face, dot), and has three tries to match one of the figures on the "gallery" of cards that have been played. There are six colors of cards, each corresponding to a figure that takes one to six dice to complete. Your object is to match a figure from each color of card, thereby collecting that card and completing your set.

Like Quirkle, this is all about seeing spatial relationships and exercising foresight. Like Quirkle, there are no words or role-playing to get in the way of the pure challenge. And like Quirkle, the game is accessible from kindergarten-age through adults. It doesn't take very long, either. We were playing within five minutes of opening the box -- again, there's only one brief page of rules. Fun and addictive.

Monopoly Electronic Banking Edition

We knew Archer would be delighted by the chance to use ATM-style debit cards to keep track of his net worth in his updated Monopoly, but I've been hesitant to jump into Monopoly with him, quite frankly. It's long and relatively complicated, what with having to decide when to buy houses and mortgage properties. But I was surprised at how much he started enjoying himself right away. One of the only pieces of strategy I proffered was that he should buy up as many properties as possible at the beginning so they could start earning money for him; he immediately grasped it and was a super-mogul by the second time around the board. (He ended up schooling me in our first game, and not because I was hanging back, either.)

The amounts of money are ramped up in his edition -- the fact that you get $2 million for passing Go should give you an idea of the inflation rate. And the properties are famous landmarks all over the world. (I enjoyed collecting the Gateway Arch, Disney World, and the Grand Ole Opry.) But the only difference in game play is how you keep track of the money. Each player has a card, and there's a banking machine. All cards start off with $15 million. If you have to pay, put your card in the side with the minus sign, and enter the amount in either K or M (thousands or millions). If you're being paid, put your card in the plus sign side and do the same thing. And if you're paying another player, put both cards in on the appropriate side, type in the amount, and it transfers.

The real drawback here is that you have to put your card in the machine to see how much money you have. I found myself asking Archer frequently (he was operating the machine, naturally, and usually he remembered from the last time he'd inserted my card). It might be helpful for everyone to keep their latest balance jotted down on scratch paper as they play.

But I found this a faithful rendition of a classic, with a numerical/electronic component that's tailor-made to delight my number/calculator/ATM/money-obsessed autist. His sister came in near the end-game and asked (characteristically) whether she could be the banker "but not play" next time.

Trios Kings Castle

I'm really happy about the way this one worked out. Stuck about a week before Christmas with nothing for pretend-play to put under the tree, I steered Noel toward Trios (which I'd wanted to get for CG's birthday, but didn't manage to procure). He got this castle building set, and spent a couple of happy hours this afternoon putting it together with her. (She enthusiastically adopted his motto for how to tell if the pieces had locked together firmly: "A satisfying snap!"). I was amazed at how big it turned out to be. There are quite a few figures and accessories, and as soon as it was together (CG was able to handle much of the construction solo, with Dad assisting when modules had to be combined), she started having the dragon-catapult attack and putting the little minifig-like knights into single combat or having them man the cannon and crossbow.

There are several other suggestions for ways to combine the building pieces to make different varieties of castles and towers. I was hoping that a Trios set would combine CG's pride in creative construction with her love of role-playing. From her happy embrace of the set this afternoon, I think I was right.

Game night

My lovely teaching assistant is throwing a party tonight for our freshman students -- pizza and games. When we asked in class what games, she threw out some choices -- Scene It, Cranium, and Telephone Pictionary.

A student immediately requested Scene It, which is a DVD game about identifying movies. I confidently replied that they don't want to be playing me in Scene It. Actually, I've never played the game, but you know, I've had a few more years on this earth to see movies compared to these 18-year-olds. Plus, movies are a part of my job, and a lot of my husband's job. I know something about movies.

I'm competitive. When I play games, I like to win; and if I can't win, I like to be in the game. In a way, playing a game like Scene It, where I'd be expected to do well, there's no way to come out on top. If I win, it's nothing special; if I don't, it's embarrassing. Really, the only way to have fun in that scenario is to stay out altogether.

One of my students told me that in her house, anybody with a negative attitude during a game has to wear "the bitter hat." Let me tell you, I'd be wearing the bitter hat much of the time. I tend to complain vocally about bad luck and to whine about being far behind. Of course, I also crow unmercifully when I'm ahead. In short, I'm probably not much fun around the card table.

Yet although I sometimes enter into games unwillingly -- because they represent a chance to lose, and not much to be gained -- I really enjoy competing. It's painful for me to stay out of a game. I'm lucky if I can find good partners and good sports to play with me. And I should remember to be thankful when they do -- especially if they come back for more.

Mario adventures

Reading the instruction booklet for Super Mario Galaxy has led Archer to take an interest in the storyline of the Mario games. Tonight he told us that he had a nine DVD set of Mario Adventures. At Cady Gray's urging, he told us three of them. Since I happened to have my computer open, I made a transcription.

The first installment follows the instruction book backstory almost word-for-word, with a big leap at the end to provide some sort of closure. The others are a bit more indicative of Archer's attempts to tell stories about the events, conflicts, and milestones he personally finds most compelling. Lately he's been devouring the information in his book of sports rules, and his pretend games have been consumed with penalties, even to the exclusion of the game itself; he pitted me against someone named "Cathy" in soccer yesterday, but we never scored goals, only got red and yellow cards (tallied on a Magnadoodle chart). You'll see that particular obsession reflected in his narratives below.

Mario And The Galaxies

One night, Mario received a letter. It said: "Dear Mario, I'll be waiting for you at the castle on the night of the star festival. I'll be so glad to see you. Love, Peach." With invitation in his hand, Mario hurried to the Mushroom Kingdom as the star festival was getting into full swing. Mario was looking forward to the night's festivities. But then something happened. Someone sent Mario to the galaxies. As the years went by, Mario just went around collecting star bits, avoiding Megaleg controlled by Bowser Jr., and getting Grand Stars.

When Mario visited all the galaxies, it was then the year of the next festival. I hope Bowser won't ruin it this time!

The end.

Mario Racing

Mario was going along to all the circuits and races in a bus with Luigi. But then when they arrived, they went over to the practice station to practice all the courses. When they reached Mario Circuit, Peach arrived. And then Mario pushed Luigi out of his kart and then hoped Peach would play games with Mario at her castle. Then when it was time for the games to start, Mario beat all the others, including Bowser, and he also beat Bowser in N64 Bowser's Castle. He quietly went on, but when Mario used his red shell, it hit Luigi and Luigi fell off the course. Then some helpful girl returned him back on the course. But even if he would return on the course, he got last place. Mario even raced in DK Summit and guess what place he got: First! Even Bowser couldn't get in first place. But he sometimes falls off the course and Mario wants on the gold trophy for that big 150 VS race.

The end.

[Cady Gray: Who was that helpful girl in the story? Archer: She picks up karts by riding on a lightning cloud. CG: Well, what is her name, do you know? Archer: I don't know what her name really is. Next episode!]

Mario And the Olympics

Mario suddenly received an invitation to compete against his friends in the annual Olympics. He ran the 400 meters but when he ran the 400 meter hurdles, he knocked over 3 hurdles so he disqualified. I'm sure at the next Olympics, he won't knock over any. Actually, at the next Olympics, a counterweight will keep the hurdles from falling.

Then, on the shorter hurdles, the boys and girls were separated. Boys race 110 meters, and girls race 100 meters. Mario saw a hurdle at every 10 meters. He only knocked over one hurdle. Then, when he was at the seventh hurdle, he pushed Luigi, so Mario disqualified again.

[Me: Why does he always push Luigi? CG: Because Mario doesn't like him.]

But then when Mario did the high jump, he knocked over Luigi and disqualified again. When he done the pole vault, Mario ran into the bar and disqualified. And Peach vaulted without the pole, so her results didn't count.

Then, when Mario done drag racing, he wrecked Bowser's drag racer and Bowser was sent to the pit row to fix it. Peach was argumentive with Luigi so Peach was deducted ten seconds. That's actually a penalty of ten seconds. When Mario finishes final lap first, he found out that Peach got lost because of her deducted ten seconds. Luigi got second place, even if he got sent to the pit row.

[CG: Remember, Archer, you actually said Bowser was sent to the pit row. Archer: Also Luigi was sent because when Bowser's vehicle was fixed, Bowser wrecked Luigi's vehicle with his spikes. CG: Yes, Bowser is really spiky. I really think he's a dinosaur.]

Then it was time for the ski slalom. Peach just kept going straight and got a time of two minutes and forty-five seconds. Her penalty was 1 minute and 43 seconds, and she got last place again. During the 4x400 meter relay race, Mario dropped the baton so he disqualified.

[CG: Mario keeps disqualifying!]

And Mario also twirled the baton to Luigi so he gone to the back.

[CG: What is the back anyway? Archer: It probably means he gets behind the last place player.]

But Mario still got first place. As Mario showed, Mario's team -- Mario, Luigi, and even Bowser is also on Mario's team -- and his team won the gold medal.

The end.

[CG: Yeah, but Mario was bad to all his teammates so he disqualified some of them!]

The fourth episode will be Mario's Super Slugger, and the fifth episode will be Super Mario and His Brothers.

La regle de jeu

Every parent knows how difficult it is to keep up with multiple conversations all at once. Here's a reconstructed transcript of our drive home from dinner this evening:

CG: Okay, Mom, I'm going to write down a letter and number on this Magnadoodle. When you tell me the number, you can give me the whole number. Got it?

Me: (doesn't get it) Got it.

Archer: (pretending to play the video poker game he watched at the restaurant) There is $420,000 in the pot.

Me: What are your hole cards?

Archer: They are ... what?

CG: Here's the letter and number, Mom. (Passes a Magnadoodle reading "H-8" to the front seat)

Me: What are your hole cards?

Archer: They are the king of hearts and the queen of hearts. Lickey has a two of diamonds and an ace of spades.

Me: In a real game of poker, you wouldn't be able to see your opponent's cards.

CG: Okay, Mom -- H!

Me: (not knowing what to do) Um, H!

CG: No, H!

Archer: It's $43,500 to call. Lickey has $200.

Me: (still confused) H!

CG: No, Mom! I said H! Now you say the number!

Me: Oh, eight!

Archer: Here's the flop: three of diamonds, three of spades, three of clubs.

Me: No hearts, too bad.

Archer: But I have a three.

CG: Okay, Mom, six!

Me: I thought you had a king of hearts and a queen of hearts.

CG: (consulting a road atlas) Six!

Archer: No, I have a king of hearts and a three of hearts.

Me: (unsure) Um, seven?

CG: No, put the numbers together!

Me: So you have a pair of threes, Archer?

Archer: No, I have four of a kind!

CG: Mom, put the numbers together!!

Me: Oh, okay ... eighty-six?

Archer: The turn is a four of spades.

Me: That doesn't help you, but you've already got four of a kind, apparently.

CG: That's right! Now here's the next one.

Archer: The river card is a joker for diamonds and hearts.

CG: Magnadoodle! Mom, Magnadoodle please!

Competition

I'm a bad loser. Maybe not as bad as some, but I get testy when I'm behind in a game. My parents are here to visit their grandkids, and last night we played Phase 10. Is there any worse game to be behind in? Your opponents pass phase after phase, and you're left repeating the same rounds.

When we were kids, we played games during dinner, or afterwards, just about every night. We went through phases, so to speak. For months we'd play nothing but Spite and Malice, or King's Corner, or Rummikub.

I remember other phases from my childhood. There was the Presto Fry Daddy we got at one point leading to a spate of deep-fried items. On the other end of the spectrum was the stir-fry kick that lasted a few months. When Mom took a cooking class and got a crepe pan, we froze stacks and stacks of thin pancakes, enough to last a French family for a year.

Maybe that experience has led me to a kind of all-in mentality. When I get hooked on something, I go all the way. I buy every book, every accessory, spend hours doing research, obsess over it, dream about it. Sometimes the phase only lasts through the first burst of shopping, since eventually all that stuff that seemed so essential when I bought it ends up gathering dust. But most of the time I will stubbornly stick with something I jumped into too quickly and too deep, just to keep from admitting defeat. Because I'm not a good loser.

Quizzical

The kids got a closeup-identification quiz game with their Quizno's meals tonight. As we walked around the neighborhood on a beautiful breezy evening, we got to experience ...

If Cady Gray Were A Game Show Host

CG: Okay, Mom, tell me the clues. You can earn four points, three points, two points, or one point.

Me: I think you have to tell me the clues, and I guess the answer.

CG: Okay. Here are the four clues. It's a form of transportation, human powered, it has spokes, and it can have training wheels.

Archer: Bike!

CG: Well, I'm sorry but you were supposed to say bicycle. Okay, here's the next question, and I will give you the first hint. It can purr but it can't roar.

Me: Cat?

CG: No, that's not it.

Me: Can I have another clue?

CG: The answer you should have said was cheetah. Cheetah. Okay, I'm going to give the cards to Archer so he can check them. Is the answer cheetah, Archer?

Archer: Uh-huh.

CG: Okay, here is the next clue for the game. You find it on a beach, and it's a multicolored ball.

Dad: Beach ball!

CG: Oh, that is correct! Beach ball is the right answer! Okay, who got that one?

Dad: I did.

CG: And who got the last one?

Me: No one did because you gave us the answer too quickly.

CG: All right, I'll give that one to you because I gave you the answer too quickly. Just hold this card. Okay, we're going on to the next clue. Here is the first hint: It is made out of pigskin.

Me: Football.

CG: You can punt, pass, or kick it.

Me: Football.

CG: You tackle the person carrying it.

Me: Football.

CG: Well, Mom, it surely is the right answer! Archer, how much money does she get for that?

Archer: A thousand dollars.

CG: Okay, here is your next question. I'll give you a hint, and you try to guess. It's a toy that walks down stairs.

Dad: (whispers to me) Slinky.

Me: Can I have another clue?

CG: It can be made of metal or plastic, and I have one in my room in a box.

Archer: Is it an igloo?

Me: Slinky!

CG: Correct! All right, it's time for the next question. It's a popular flavor for desserts, and it has a shell that is hard to crack.

Archer: Egg!

Dad: Let me see the picture. Is it coconut?

CG: Oh, that is the right answer! Okay, I'll take all the cards now.

Things I'm loving

• Garmin nüvi 350. We're an early adopter on most technology. Heck, I have a Kindle 1.0. But I've never seen a need for a navigation system. It's been four years since we bought a new car, so we haven't had it come up as an option. And we take few enough car trips that the thought really just never occurs to us. But when this Garmin model was recommended in my beloved Cool Tools, it clicked for me. I got it for Noel for Christmas, and we've just been playing with it in advance of his trip to the Ozark Foothills Film Fest this weekend. It couldn't be more intuitive -- just select your state and street address (you don't even need to tell it the city in advance, and it auto-completes the street name after you've typed a few letters), and a voice suddenly begins telling you where to turn. I couldn't resist using it for a few trips around town today, and even learned a back way home.


• Duplicity. After several weekends apart, Noel and I finally got to go out for a movie tonight. Our choice was this quirky corporate espionage comedy/thriller, which has been getting raves. And what a delight! Clive Owen is adorable, the screenplay is brilliant, and Tony Gilroy lends a smart energy to the whole affair. And I laughed every time Paul Giamatti came on screen. "Stocks are down, porn is up, and there's plenty of free parking!"


• Wii. The good news about our tax refund, combined with a windfall from Noel's aggressive CD and DVD purging, allowed us to treat ourselves to our first video game system ever. Yes, prior to the Wii that entered our household today, the kids had made do with Noel's Super Nintendo. Much like the nüvi, a video game system is something I'd long resisted because we don't strictly, well, need it. But when the Wii came out, my barely repressed love of cute things and foreshortened plumbers came to the fore. And now, Wiiiiiiiiii!
  

You forgot to say Uno

Uno is probably one of the first card games a lot of kids learn to play. I know that our kids were playing it from the moment they could recognize numbers. You've got to hand it to the Mattel folks -- they've managed to translate public-domain card games into merchandising empires. Uno, of course, is basically Crazy-Eights.

My mom and dad sent the kids Skip-Bo for their birthdays, and tonight after dinner they broke it out and played. I couldn't figure out what card game it was emulating until I looked it up on Wikipedia -- Spite and Malice! I had totally forgotten about that game. Our family went on a serious Spite and Malice kick sometime in the eighties, a few years after our King's Corner craze.

Now that the grandparents are here, I imagine we'll be playing games just about every night. They haven't stopped cycling through new games; a couple of years ago it was dominos, and now it's Rummikub. Maybe someday we'll make it all the way back around to the games we played growing up.

Family roles

Both of our kids have suddenly acquired the kind of imagination it takes to roleplay, and they love to act out versions of stories they see on TV or read in books. Sometimes the playlet is elaborate -- sometimes simple.

On the simple side, Cady Gray decided some weeks ago that she would get "stuck" occasionally and require the ministrations of "Super Archer" or "Super Daddy" to rescue her. More frequently in the past few days, she's been urging me to admire her beautiful "jools" (antecedent to their theft by some mysterious character, probably from Little Einsteins). She asks me if I'm wearing my "jools," and then addresses me as "Lady Mommy."

Better that than "Servant Mommy," the title given to me by Archer as we got ready to go on our walk this evening. Then he asked me what a servant was. I said it was someone who helped another person and did whatever that person said -- fed them, helped them get dressed, ran their errands. The shoe does fit, I confess, but I'll wear it only by choice and not by fiat.

More poignant is Cady Gray's recent concern for my welfare. Little girls, I'm told, go through this stage when they mother their parents, and she's in it. On walks she asks to hold my hand "so you'll not be scared." The only clue I have as to why I might be scared comes from a few vague references to "the birds will be too loud, and the birds will be quiet."

Ever since we got Archer a 20 Questions game around Father's Day (it was the gift he picked out for Noel, but he immediately appropriated it), he's been pretending to be the computer inside that surprisingly knowledgeable ball. Yesterday he wanted me to think of something; I picked celery, which we'd just been talking about -- the Wonder Pets have convinced both children that it's delicious (and they say television isn't a positive influence on kids).

His questions remained mostly on point, and of course directly quoted from the 20Q ball ("Is it a vegetable? Do you hold it when you use it? Does it have leaves?"). But then came the oddly apropos quotation, delivered in his trademark deliberate drawl: "Is it comforting?"

Thank goodness for the models of conversation provided by the electronic media. Without the hosts, reporters, and inteviewees on television, we'd have much less back-and-forth with Archer. Today at lunch, he observed suddenly, and with touching curiosity: "Dad, you and Mom are not drinking your soda. Why?"

I always knew that at some point their questions would get harder to answer. If you feel like answering some hard questions of your own, play the 20Q A.I. online -- it's fun to try the newer variations on the classic game like Harry Potter 20Q, Old Testament 20Q (it guessed "Delilah" in 17 questions) and 20Q Movies (Sunset Boulevard took it the full 20 questions, largely due to a previous player who had classified it as an actor rather than a movie, leading to questions like "Do you wear glasses?").