SCRABBLE

The kids have been obsessed with Scrabble for the last few months. It started when one of them discovered a version of the game on the computer. Besides the obvious online injection of dopamine, the PC version made it very easy for them to learn the rules, play against each other or alone, check words in the official Scrabble Dictionary, learn to keep score, and even gave them hints when they asked for them. After a few weeks of being nagged to let them play on the computer constantly, I sent Ted to our storage unit to retrieve our regular and travel Scrabble games. The boys were delighted! And, thanks to the swift learning curve with the computer version, they were off and running with the real game, completely on their own. They play together. They play alone. They create fantasy Scrabble boards with impossible 10-letter words. And, on the few occasions I've had time to play with them, the games are very close. Thanks to the online dictionary, they know far more 2 letter words that I will probably ever know. They also know every word that starts with the letter Q. They talk triple word scores, and proudly (and instantly) shout out their scores. They even taught me the Scrabble term "bingo", which is a play using all 7 of your tiles. (I still haven't gotten one yet, but they have.) Elliot's proudest moment? "Quizzers", using a blank for the second Z. Now, if only they could tell me what all the words they play mean...