We are what, four days, into summer vacation, and already they are bored out of their minds. It doesn’t help that it has rained EVERY DAY since school let out.
Today, in desperation, I took them to Toys R Us. Now, you might be thinking that this was a rookie mistake. But they wanted to go to the LegoLand in Schaumburg. I told them I would buy them Legos that equaled the cost of admission to said Legoland if we didn’t actually have to go to Legoland. I am, sometimes, smarter than I look.
To my shock and awe, while working our way to the Legos, they spotted International Monopoly and immediately started to beg for it. Please Mommy! Can we get it? Can we get it?
I was unsure. It is the new one with the credit cards and the automatic calculator. Where is the learning about math and money? Would they be getting the full Monopoly experience?
Can I just tell you how much I love the new Monopoly?!?!?
There is no more counting out piles of little money that get lost under the board or tracked all over the living room. No more “how many hundreds?” “Is that your pile or mine?” No one gets stuck being the banker. Each of us gets a little color coded debit card and electronically get our 15 million in starter funds.
No, I am not on drugs. 15 million…$15,000,000. Seems inflation has finally made it to the Boardwalk. Although the Boardwalk is something different now. And now it cost $4 million. I choke when I have to pay 100K rent, they don’t even blink.
It goes so much faster, is so much simpler. They were actually enjoying the game, and every transaction didn’t take an hour and a half. I am now a Monopoly convert. I will never use the paper money version again.
The little barons buy everything they land on. No exceptions. Except the littlest. He buys nothing but utilities and transportation companies. He likes to save his money. If their attention spans ever make it through a whole game, I expect he will win handily.
Once they were bored with the game they took the cards and the “bank” and set up a store in the living room. With, in their minds, functioning credit cards, they bought and sold things from the table display for the rest of the evening.
They are their father’s sons.
The Blahg 