Last night, after his sister had gone to bed, my three year old son Patrick and I spent some time playing on “daddy’s Xbox”. He wants Cars and Viva Pinata for Christmas, but I fired up the Sonic the Hedgehogdemo and handed him the controller. He’s only three, so he would basically run around in a circle and jump until he fell off the very tall tower the demo starts on. He enjoyed it, but he was also a little discouraged because he wasn’t very good at the game.

That got me thinking about what kind of games would be good for him. He’s not that good with the controller yet, so fighting bad guys or navigating a ledge on a tall tower are not great bets. Likewise, three year olds aren’t that good at focusing on a specific goal like “pick up all the rings” but would rather just explore the world. Viva Pinata sounds like it’s right on target for Patrick (plus, he likes the TV show). But what other games really fit the bill? Not many. Patrick loves Cars – he wants to be Lightning McQueen so bad – but I’m not sure he’s going to be any good at the game.

I wonder if there’s much of a market for pre-school console games? Probably not at the $50-60 price point, but as a $5 or $10 Xbox Live Arcade game? Maybe so. I’ve played around with XNA Game Studio, but I haven’t really been inspired to build anything. Maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong place for inspiration!

Update: My father had a great suggestion. Patrick loves Handy Manny and Bob the Builder, so how about some type of Mr. Fix It game where you can go around building and repairing stuff. Sort of Grand Theft Auto with tools, but for three year olds.

I’m sure my wife will blog this in more detail, but we’re on vacation so blogging isn’t top of her mind. Today was my brother’s wedding – I was the best man with the whole speech giving and everything. We left the kids with my wife’s sister tonight, but last night we brought them to the rehearsal dinner. They were the only two kids there but there were straight up amazingly well behaved. All night. Long past their bedtime (though to be honest, we are in Washington DC and still sort of on west coast time). I mean, I expect my kids to behave – but this was above and beyond. We got to the restaurant around 6pm and didn’t leave until 9:30! Tonight, at the wedding, several people told us how impressed they were with our kids. I am too.

Just wanted to blog how incredibly proud I am of my kids.

I normally keep this blog clear of personal and political commentary, saving that talk for my personal blog on MSN Spaces. But this time I had to make an exception. Check out this awesome picture of my daughter Rileyanne in a field of buttercups. Isn’t she cute? 😄

Matt got this book as a present for Patrick when he was still a baby. When Patrick was a baby that is! 😄 It has my favorite line from all of childrens literature:

THIS is a man with a gun.

They don’t write them like that any more!

Recently, I learned that a friend of mine from high school took his own life. I hadn’t spoke to him in nearly a decade, but it was still a shock and very saddening.

There’s a memorial for him this weekend in Northern Virginia, but there’s no way I can make time to go back east for it. There will be a large number of old friends there, many of whom I haven’t seen or spoken to much since high school. It further adds to my sadness that it took the death of a friend for me to both realize the need and have the opportunity to reconnect with so many old friends.