How to Spend Time with Your Family

Did you know studies show that more than 50% of families spend less than 10 hours per week together as a family?  Per week - yikes!  Another statistic shows that 62% of parents desire more time with their children.  Finding ourselves decidedly in that 62%, we declared "Family Game Night" a few evenings ago.  After dinner, we cleared the table, tossed the dishes in the dishwasher, and set up a game that elicited the following comments. . .

"Careful there Cole, you're spreadin' your butter a little too thin!"

"It's all for the capital, baby!"

"Come on Mom, we've gotta stop Dad from gaining global domination!"

The game of the evening, since Kate was off to Grandma Camp and Molly had opted for sleep, was. . .

"A Game of Strategic Conquest" the box advertises and strategy abounded.  Cole and his Dad sat opposite of Meg and me, each of us commanding our own army.  Cole chose red, the color of blood.  My Man's army was blue, as in "black and blue" (hear the "man grunts"?).  Meg chose green for her army because it is her current favorite color and I was left with yellow, as in "yellow belly".  Oh well.

With each roll of the dice the game grew increasingly tense. 

Brows were knit, eyes were pinched in concentration, foreheads were grasped in hands as players worked their "stragegery".

While on our side of the table, a different tone was in evidence.

See that monkey?  (No, not the one rolling the dice. . .).  On the girls' side of the table, we were doing...well, what women do:  MULTI-TASKING!  You see, earlier in the day we came across a treasure on the public library shelves called Ed Emberley's Drawing Book of Animals.   Meg and I were itching to give it a try, sooooo. . .let's just say our Risk experience was a bit less intense than our men's.  Oh, we still played and played hard, but we also learned how to draw some happenin' monkeys and turtles during our "non-conquering moments".

Look, there's me in the yellow.  Yup, the one who rules Africa, most of Asia.  And the very same one who would go on to take over the Australian continent and eventually win the game (all the while drawing a smiling pig wearing some fetching trousers)!  Yellow rules!

We finally sent the kids to bed at about 10:45 that school night.  I felt that I could afford to let them sleep in a bit the next morning as we'd covered geography and art the night before.  Ya gotta love us homeschoolers, we think it all counts.

We did have a bit of trouble getting out of bed the next morning.  However, we also had a bunch of new phrases to add to the "family banter" (our favorite was the one about "spreading one's butter too thin"), we had invested hefty deposits into our memory banks, and we had a great time TOGETHER. 

(. . .and we may have discovered a budding cartoonist!)

***PLEASE NOTE:  For those of you who remember Risk as a long, looong, looooooong game, there is a better option.  We purchased our set a year or so ago specifically because of the words on the box. . ."3 ways to play, faster game play".  We've only learned one of the three ways and it usually results in an hour and a halfish long game.  It is the perfect skill level for a 9 and a 10 year old and their befuddled parents.  The game involved adding, dividing, following directions, geography and, as advertised, strategic conquest.  Maybe, when the kids get older, they can explain to us how to play the other two versions of this game.