Emma's Obsession

Anyone who knows me knows I love playing games. My family gets together quite often and plays bunches of games. We tend to like the longer, strategy filled games better than games such as Balderdash, but we love those too, and we are all fans of poker (don't judge us). Many (but definitely not all) of our favorites come from Days of Wonder in case you were wondering.

So, with all this gaming, I guess it comes as no surprise that one of Emma's favorite things to do is play games. Some days she seems obsessed with it. She has nine games right now, and always welcomes more. Almost every day she asks either Eric or me (or both of us) to play a game with her. And lately Eric has taken it upon himself to teach Emma a new game, and one of his favorites. Chess.

I know how to play chess, but I just don't like it very much, so I don't usually play with Eric. Sometimes he'll play with his twin brother when we visit Colorado (which is awesome to watch, because they are SO competitive with one another - I laugh every time), but that's not very often. So I guess he wanted someone closer to play with. I was amazed at how fast Emma picked it up. I think by the second day she already knew the names of all the pieces, but also how each piece moves. The pawn gives her a little grief, but that's only because the way it moves changes depending on whether it's in its starting position or not, and whether it's attacking another piece or not. She's already got a leg up on me, because I can never remember if the knight or the bishop goes closer to the king. I know they are next to each other, and I know which two spaces they occupy, but I can't remember which one occupies which space. And I don't really care either, since I almost never play.

And ever since he taught her, she wants to play almost every day.