Normally Sunday mornings would find me in the playpark while the children race back and forth on rollerskates, skateboards, or bikes, competing for my attention while showing off their latest daredevil antics (perhaps I should qualify - for the youngest, her most dangerous trick is cycling while standing on the pedals - you really need to see her remarkable lack of balance and coordination to understand why we considered it dangerous).
So - it’s wet and cold outside - what to do? Perhaps these days are the ones the Nintendo Wii was invented for. Rather than let them loose with Wii Sports - where they invariably end up contesting two thousand rounds of sword fighting (I’m sure they will progress towards real-world dead legs as a tactic very soon, just as we did 30 years ago) - I directed them towards Lego Star Wars.
Mistake.
You have never experienced frustration until you have attempted to explain how to play Wii Lego Star Wars to a small child.
“No, press the trigger” (while waggling trigger finger)
“No, not that one - the TRIGGER”
“THE TRIGGER… THE TRIGGER!”
“You’ve got the controller round the wrong way!”
“I said go forwards, not left!”
“No, LEFT! That way…. NO! That’s right! I said LEFT! Yes, THAT WAY!”
It was all so much more simple when I was young. The Atari 2600 had a stick you pushed around, with one red button. The Nintendo Entertainment System had simple direction pads, with a couple of buttons labelled A and B.
Fast forward and we have a controller in each hand, each of which is sensitive to it’s position in space and angle relative to the television, and both of which are covered in buttons.
It’s no wonder first Little Miss Five, and then Little Miss Seven threw their arms up in annoyance. The final explosion was the most entertaining; a full on leg kicking, bottom bouncing, face grimacing performance while screaming “I CAN’T DOOOO IT!”.