Portal 2 Co-op with kids

This weekend, I played the co-op mode of Portal 2 with out 8-year-old son, and had a blast. The co-op mode is structured in a way where you have to work together, so at the end of every level, both of us felt a sense of accomplishment.

The game has an interesting mechanism for helping communication. When solving a puzzle required him to place a portal in a particular location, I had the ability to mark the location where the portal was to be placed.  This made it very easy for him to place the portals.

In addition to the game being fun, we enjoyed solving the puzzles together.  I think that once we finish the co-op mode, we will be getting the announced DLC and play that together.

Parenting in a Connected World

This article has some tips for parenting in a connected world.

Anniversary

Eleven years ago, today, I was lucky enough to marry an incredible woman. Eleven years and three kids later, I love living every day with my wife.

Happy anniversary Sweetheart, I love going through life with you.

Raising a Healthy Gamer

This is a pretty good article with some tips for raising a child that play video games.

http://twitter.com/GetGameSmart/status/19557524600528896

[via @GetGameSmart]

The Knowledge of Children

The Kids decided to watch Fantasia this evening. Though skipping through most of the introductions of the pieces, they watched most of the segments.  There are a some interesting things that I heard them discuss.

Our son had a problem with the introduction to the "The Rite of Spring" piece.  Even though the movie came out in 1940, he was arguing with the TV about the comment:

And then... well, we don't exactly know what happened. Some scientists think that great droughts and earthquakes turned the whole world into a gigantic dustbowl. In any case, the dinosaurs were wiped out

He was telling his sisters that it was an asteroid.

Then the kids were having a discussion about the differences between magma and lava, and naming the types of single cell organisms and dinosaurs.

At their age, I don't know if I would have had those discussions.  As a parent, I wonder what opportunities they will have, when they grow up.

Kids and the Holidays

When you become an adult, sometimes you get a little jaded with the Christmas holidays.  Dealing with traffic, shopping, family drama.  It wasn't always like this for me, when I was a kid, I got very excited about the holidays.  I would count the number of days until Christmas morning and go to sleep early, feeling that this would cause Christmas to come earlier. In the days before Christmas, I would play with Matchbox cars under the presents, and leave them there for Christmas morning.

Now that we have kids, the magic of the holidays has come back for me. Seeing the kids so excited about Christmas makes all of the craziness of the holidays worth it.  We went to a Christmas tree farm and cut down a Christmas tree for the first time. Our daughter sing Christmas songs in the back seat of the car.  Our son likes to rearrange the ornaments on the tree, over and over again.

Is is really nice to see the kids so excited about Christmas.  I have been lucky enough to be able to take the last two weeks of the year off, and I am enjoying the time with the kids.

Kinect

A few weeks ago we got a Kinect for our Xbox 360.  The Kinect sensor allows you to use your body as a controller for games. The implementation that Microsoft makes it very easy to get into the games.

We used to have a Wii, and the kids, especially the younger ones, had a hard time using the Wiimote, especially when absolute movement is needed.  The kids really enjoy the Kinect.  They haven't had any problem playing the games.  They really like playing Kinect Adventures and Kintectimals.  Our 6-year-old daughter has a lot of fun playing Dance Central.

I would recommend Kinect for any family with kids, especially if you already have an Xbox in the house.