8 and up!

I'm not sure that the new Star Wars Clone Wars Monopoly game has the right ages listed. It says it is for kids 8 and up. I don't exactly know what the age thing means. Does it mean that 8 years old and up can understand and play, or does it mean 8 year old and up can play without throwing a big hairy fit when they lose? It must mean they can understand how to play, because Gage was not able to play without throwing a huge fit because he lost. Gage and Emma played this game with Scott's parents before they left last Sunday and there were a few times I heard the kids getting mad. I'm not sure how it was resolved because I wasn't paying that much attention. My guess is that they allowed the kids to get by with breaking the rules to keep them from getting upset, or they possibly didn't follow the rules themselves and allowed one of them to win when they really shouldn't have? That may not be correct, but that is my assumption. When I play games, I play them by the rules. I hate losing, but I'm not a sore loser, and I certainly don't have a problem with losing to the kids when we are playing games together. I'm not quite as competitive with them as I am with Scott, or perhaps my family. Gage had a complete meltdown as he suffered a slow and painful death while we were playing Monopoly tonight. He had to sell his buildings and then mortgage properties to be able to have enough money to pay me for landing on my property that contained a city (a hotel in normal Monopoly), and it was one of the orange properties too, so it wasn't even like it was Boardwalk or Park Place. He sold and mortgaged until he had enough money, then he landed on Emma's properties (Boardwalk and Park Place) that contained 2 (houses). He was able to get her paid, then came back around and landed on my orange properties again and that was all she wrote. He entered complete meltdown phase and was yelling at the top of his lungs, saying I was a cheater and that he hated me. Nice!!! I ignored it and Scott put them to bed. It was past bedtime, but I told them we could play the game as long as they agreed that there would be no stories at bedtime, because it would be too late. Since they agreed to that, I thought it would be okay to stay up a little past bedtime and play. That was a bad plan. It was Family Fun Night, so what could I do? It ended up not being so much fun! Gage did finally apologize, but the Monopoly game is put up until he's old enough to play and lose gracefully (that may be never!).

Tomorrow I have Girl Scout Leader training from 8a-5p. Scott was supposed to be out of town for work this weekend, but he ended up not having to go to this meeting after all. For a couple of days he's been very concerned about the fact that he needed to go to Tuttle to get his things before he can leave on his next trip, on Monday, to Saskatchewan. I really couldn't figure out what the big deal was, because there would be several chances over the weekend for him to do that. It was a task that would take approximately 2 1/2 hours (1 hour there, 1 hour back and 30 minutes for gathering up his stuff). However, it continued to be a big thing that he just didn't know how he was going to get his stuff. I knew what the problem was. (I'm not quite as stupid as he thinks I am!) The problem was that he also wanted to hunt while he was there, and he has the kids all day tomorrow. He was not going to miss out on doing a little hunting while he went to get his stuff, so he took off work today at noon to go get his stuff (and hunt). He made it home tonight about 8:30 (during Monopoly meltdown) and told me that the friend that he hunted with somehow locked his keys in his vehicle, so Scott had to bring him home to get another set of keys, and now has to take him back to Tuttle so he can get his vehicle. UGH! So, his few hours of hunting has pretty much turned into an all day thing. A big shocker, huh?

I'm going to enjoy my day away tomorrow, even if it is an all day leader training. Then I have Medora (my 3 day scrapbooking retreat) to look forward to for next weekend! Thankfully I have something to look forward to, and it will be a much needed break after a long week as a single Mom.