Sunday, December 26, 2010

Home for the Holidays: Never again, Jumbo Jump. Never. Again.



So, my grandma's-cousin's-daughter came over last week and I was in-charge of kid-handling. The children were actually quite precious- Natalie and Ben, 6 and 4, respectively, did not fight or yell at each other, while Grace, 3 years of age, spent most of her time running around the house talking on the phone. For the record, Gracie is one of the most adorable things I have ever had the privilege of playing telephone with. Being born with Downs Syndrome has not held her back from enjoying any minute of life and seeing her smile when the phone lit up (after I had dialed the number from my cell), well, it could have made the most hardened person crack their hideous shell and smile too.

To get back from my cute-child-digression, I had to figure out what a 23 year-old with limited babysitting skills could do with 2 small children. It was actually quite easy- I'd let technology do all my dirty work for me!

Enter Wii Party.

Wii Party is the latest addition to the Wii family gaming in which players compete in mini-games to earn the highest score, and thus, bragging rights and household renown. Some of the games are extremely similar in design to Mario Party, but since Nintendo owns the right to all of it, it's fair game, I guess.

As with all children, the closest way to time well-preoccupied are games that are easy to work and retain as much attention as possible. It turns out that activity has a name in Wii Party. It's called "Jumbo Jump" and it was PERFECT. All the game does it sends the Miis hurling down the ski-jump and at the right moment, the player needs to flick their remote upward. That's it- it worked perfectly.

Until Natalie said it. And I will remember it this moment for days to come:

She looked straight into my eyes with her light blue eyes, blonde pig-tails, and child-sized toothy grin and said...

"This game is SO much fun- I want to play it until we leave!"

She had just gotten there.

1 hour and over 50+ games later, they decided to try another mini-game. This experimental phase only lasted 2 games before they wanted to do more Jumbo Jump.

Here is the thing though- it wouldn't have been that bad except I. could. Not. Beat THEM! I don't know what it was or how they did it, but the kids kept getting the records on the game. They'd make records and then make some more, all the while, I was 'happily' getting second place. Mind you, I did my fair share of winning, but I never once made a record jump.

Upside: Natalie did not gloat. She made sure to let me know that second place was still good.
Downside: I can never Jumbo Jump again.

Here is a video of Jumbo Jump. All together, Wii Party is amazingly fun and worth snagging it you have the system and a fun family.

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