Gaming in a Winter Wonderland

We've managed to keep Associate Editor Ronna Mandel pretty busy lately. Just in the past several weeks, she's earned a copper spatula at a special Nintendo cooking-game event, attended an opening of a Burbank kids' eatery and is planning today to check out a book reading at Every Picture Tells a Story with Burbank author/illustrator David Shannon (check back soon to find out how that went). This week she also got her game back on and made the trek to a holiday party sponsored by Electronic Arts. Here's her report. 

I thought finding my way down to EA Headquarters in Playa Vista was going to be a challenge, but that proved a lot easier than beating Chandra Knee from the PR company Murphy O’Brien at Connect 4, one of the fun games included on Hasbro’s Family Game Night for Wii. My 7-year-old son Coleman and I attended the Winter Gaming Wonderland sponsored by EA, but for gamers, it could easily have been called Paradise.

Picture a room set up with every electronic game you could dream of, there for you to play alongside the game’s designers and publicists! My son and I started off by sampling Spore, a PC and Mac game rated 10+ E for Everyone, but Coleman tried it and was off and running – well, at least his creation was. Despite the fact that he was a little under the age recommendation, Coleman designed a sort of cucumber-looking creature in this brilliantly conceived program in which players design living beings, tribes, worlds and universes (and can even incorporate others’ creations into their own game/world).

While we did not try Boogie Superstar, the crowd of young girls ‘rocking’ around that game never waned. Stopping for a while at the Brain Quest station, Coleman picked up a Nintendo DS and began playing Brain Quest for grades 3-4. The other version currently available is for grades 5-6. I’m not embarrassed at all to admit that the Sudoku on here, as well as on Travel Games for Dummies, was addictive and a great way to keep those neural pathways in shape for us older moms!

We meandered over to Boom Blox where Coleman stayed for the remainder of the event (apart from a few excursions over to play NERF “N-Strike” (in stores now) and his other fave, Zubo, (due out this March). 

Under the guise of treating my family to a Wii for the holidays, I’m actually heading out today to buy a Wii for me. But remember, mum’s the word. I simply cannot wait to sink my husband’s submarine playing Battleship on Hasbro’s Family Game Night!! “Hey honey, I sunk the ship.” 

A Bonus for Blog Readers!

Rodent movies have been all the rage lately, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing the new animated movie The Tale of Despereaux, which hits theaters Dec. 19. In honor of the release and to promote this tale of a big-eared yet brave little mouse, Universal is offering a little prize package for faithful "I Don't Have Time for This" readers.

 



Click here to enter to win (include your name, address and telephone number in the e-mail) this special prize pack valued at $100 that includes:

• Adult shirt


• Adult hat


• Picture frame magnet


• Croc shoe decoration


• Mini poster

The deadline is Dec. 29, so do it quickly!

Here's the fine print: 

TERMS & CONDITIONS: Your entry must be received no later than 12:00 pm (PST), December 29, 2008. Odds of winning are based on the number of entries. One (1) winner will receive the prize noted above. Winners are chosen at random from all eligible submissions and will be notified by email. If the winner cannot be reached, then a new winner will be chosen. You may request the name of the winner by contactingmarketing@parenthood.com. The retail value of the prize is as is noted above. This prizes are not redeemable for cash. Dominion Enterprises is not responsible for and does not warrant the safety or quality of the prize, and is not liable for any injury, damage or death related to the prize or its use. 

Eligibility: You must be age 18 or older to enter. Only residents of the state of California are eligible to enter this contest. Residents of Florida, New York and all other states are NOT eligible to enter. Employees of Dominion Enterprises and their immediate families may not enter. All applicable laws apply and this contest is void where prohibited By participating in this promotion, you become a Parenthood.com site member. Parenthood.com intends to send regular email updates and occasional promotional offers that may be of interest to you. You may opt-out of these mailings at any time upon receipt.

Golden White Board

Kate has a lot of homework this year. That means that the managing, planning, writing, scheduling, ciphering and cajoling that I do at the office doesn't end when I walk in the front door at home.

There's often a battle raging inside my head while I'm battling with Kate outside my head. Do I try to constantly keep reminding her to get this stuff done? Do I give up dinner making/laundry doing/clutter pick-upping/soccer-practice driving in order to sit down and help her through every minute of it? Do I let her "forget" or just decide that she'd rather do something else and suffer the consequences?

And while I'm sitting there watching her work on her times tables and sentence structure, I can't help but think, "Hey, I already did this stuff. I paid my dues." (Of course, I didn't have that quantity of homework till I was in at least the ninth grade.) 

Of course, none of that type of thinking is productive. And for her part, Kate is really working hard at it. But through this turbulent first semester of third grade, I've managed to learn and discover some new techniques to help us both get through it with minimal glasses of wine (on my part) and fewer eyeball rolls and hands-to-the-sky gestures.

Tip Number One: Let the girl relax for a minute. Go kick the ball, dance to some horrible Jonas Brothers song, have a quick tennis match on the Wii. 

Tip Number Two: Feed her. She's going to lap my diminutive stature in a matter of one good growth spurt, and she's feeding that growing body like each meal is her last. A snack will keep her brain on her homophones instead of her hunger.

Tip Number Three: Give her a dry-erase board. This is quite possibly the best little brainstorm I've had since the "truth bed" (the end-of-day kid-confessional) and naming vegetables after icky monster parts. She sketches out her weekly plan, carefully erasing each day as she completes the tasks that she sets for herself based on the week's due dates. The drawback is that Kate likes to linger in the creativity of the task (yesterday, she painstakingly made each letter a different color), but she got the work done. Which is kind of our goal here.

So there you go. And by all means, please leave comments with your suggestions for homework help!

Live from Disneyland!

I wasn't sure whether this phone-based blogging would be practical or not, but here I am at Disneyland at a mom blogger event about to watch the Christmas fireworks! It's shoulder to shoulder, but this will be my first time watching the snow fall in Disneyland.
Stay tuned ... I'll keep the blog updated with all the "cool" activities here tomorrow!
Oh, and check out Kate's amazing face painting!

Testing!

I think I've officially entered the geek-gadget corps! Right now I am blogging from my iPhone. How cool is this?