The game: Carcassonne.
The purpose: Build a… screw it. It doesn’t matter. This is not a board game review. You want a board game review, go watch Will Wheaton’s Table Top, the Carcassonne edition, or spend some time on Board Game Geek. You’re hear to read this:
Ender: Kill! The! Cheater!
Sean: I am not cheating! Jesus, Ender, what the hell…
Cinder: That’s how they used to do it in ancient times. Kill the cheater.
Jane: Flora–get Mom more wine. Please.
Cinder: Why are you upset , Mom? Did you just notice the mistake that cost you nine points?
Jane: F@ck.
I play board games with them. It’s proof of how much I love them.
Bonus Phrase aka Guess the Context:
Sean: Well, if our Carcassonne game smells the next time we play, we’ll have to get a new one.
♠
The plague visited my house this week. ’twas awful. I’m still not sure I will live. But let’s not dwell on my imminent death. All three kids survived, and they have a great Daddy.
♦
Meanwhile, in the Blogosphere: My brilliant blogging friend Kimberly from All Work And No Play Make Mommy Go Something Something wants to tell you about true love. Or is it Barf and Bracelets? Go let her. And my also brilliant blogging friend Stephanie from Where Crazy Meets Exhaustion (I only have brilliant friends; I’m prejudiced that way) was interviewed Inside the Blogger’s Studio on Danielle Herzog’s Martinis and Minivans: it’s a really neat piece on the “why” of blogging. And, have you heard? Deni from Denn State is finally no longer pregnant! Go say congrats!
But if you only read one thing this week (other than me), go read Brian Sorrell’s A Thousand Words About Bullying Poverty & Fathers.
xoxo
“Jane”
Nothing By The Book 
Love Carcassonne for it’s fast easy game play… though it seems to require considerable surface area often in an unpredictable direction but the rules are a bit rigid with little room for creative manipulation. Not sure if you even played Munchkin, it has a bit of wiggle room for either discovering some of the rules as you go along or making up your own kind of blurring the line between straight up cheating and being a resourceful manipulator 🙂
They LOVE Munchkin. It’s a game designed for a Cinder, really.
They also love Small World and Settler of Katan, although I think your crew’s too small for that. We have Carcassonne for the iPad as well for playing in less spreadable places like restaurants, although I find that harder–hard to see the entire game play at a time on that smaller screen.
I, truthfully, don’t love boardgames. But I love them. So. I play. 🙂
We’re not at the board game stage yet but once we are, I hope to be as amazingly cool as you are and have bonus lines about having to get a replacement if the game ends up stinking after use. Also? I can’t wait until my kid is old enough to get me more wine.
In less than seven years, Cinder can go to the liquor store to GET me more wine. Wait, I didn’t just say that. Yes, I did…
PS It wasn’t because of The Plague. The board game stinking, I mean.
Oh, the cheating accusations are rampant here, too. And with a 7 and 4 yo it’s hard to find games they can both play!
Yeah, I found most board games–good ones anyway–didn’t really work until Flora turned 8. Now the only challenge is keeping the Ender contained. We have a number of games that we can play in which he can do his own thing, really–feel part of the game, but not follow any of the rules, but not actually wreck it for the rest of us. But most games, we choose to play on the nights he miraculously goes to sleep at 7 or 8.
I’m trying to think of good games for littles… Family Past Times has a few: Max the Cat, my kids loved, and they have a whole series of co-operative games–and that eliminates the stress of the 4 y o losing and having his heart broken for all eternity. Check it out: you can get them via amazon, too, but this is a link to the main site: Cooperative Games for ages 3-7.
Here I am reading this lovely blog post about board games, thinking, SING IT! Board games are a disaster in my life because we spend more time searching for the pieces that *someone* threw around the room in a whirling devilish mess — then BAM! You mention me. #Flattered.
Amazing piece of writing.
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We are SO at the board game place right now; I’m putting Carcassonne on my list of things to buy as to not sell a child this long, long winter. THANK YOU! And thank you for your kind words, too; you’re always lurking in this here blogosphere and I love that about you. xo