Check!

Jack has taken a big interest in chess lately.

He evidently read about it in one of his gazzillion library books and has been eager to learn to play for about a week now. He and I went to the library yesterday to pick up a couple of books about chess for children and he started trying to read them, and then decided, at 10 minutes past bedtime, that he wanted me to read them to him. I will -- but by the light of day.

Mark has offered to loan Jack a chess set one of these days so he can actually practice. But in the meanwhile, Jack has been running around the house shouting "Checkmate!"

As with so many things with a five year old super-hero, Jack is sure that he will be very good at chess right away. I wonder how long his interest will last once he realizes how challenging it really is. Then again -- he has persevered with many more things than I expected so far in his short life. (I do wish Corey were around though. Corey actually likes chess.)

In other news, in scratching around Rod found that between our newly simplified ways and the cash he has earned over the last little while, we are able to (just) afford a new washing machine. It will be delivered on Saturday. I have to say that I am very glad that I was in the habit of keeping up with the laundry -- it means that we will be able to get through the rest of the week very handily. Now, I just hope that the fridge will hold on until we can pull another rabbit out of our hat!

In addition to chess, Jack has gone on another Chore Wars binge...and I have to say, it;s very amusing to watch him scour the list of chores for something he can do and then tear around the house cleaning up and putting things away! At his request, we loaded that page into the places he can visit from his own computer, with the promise that he won't claim any chores unless he has adult confirmation. He has been checking his list several times a day, which has Rod and working hard to come up with new chores to add to the list.

The game has also lead to seeral discussions about the nature of chores and what is and is not a chore and what it means to be a member of Team Smiffy. Jack wanted to add "eating my dinner" and "obeying an adult" to the list, and we talked about how some thinsg we do for ourselves and some things are just expected in civilized company, and other things have to be done for the family to be comfortable, but it doesn't matter so much *who* does them, except to be fair. I have to be sweet to Jack eve when I have a headache. He has to obey his adults. That's just being a good team member. But while the laundry needs to be washed and dinner cooked, as long as it happens, it doesn't matter too much who does it. Those are chores. He seems top get it -- and when I mentioned Team Smiffy, he has taken to giving a HUGE roar that would do Uncle Trevor proud at a Geelong Cats game, which first astonished and alarmed Rod and then caused him to topple over laughing.