After looking at a few choices I settled on a WiiWare game called Learning with the PooYoos.

Learning with the PooYoos is a game developed in France and available via WiiWare download on the Wii for 500 points ($5.00). The game is designed with two different levels: Little PooYoos (ages 3-4) and Big PooYoos (ages 5-6). Given the age levels, the graphics and catchy theme song are perfect and will capture the young players’ attention. After you pick you level, there are two different games to play. One involves matching the shape of a PooYoo with the shape in a cloud (first picture below) and the second involved popping balloons with the water from the elephant PooYoo’s trunk.

Isaac can not yet handle the shape matching game so I can’t speak as much to that part of the game, but we have played the balloon popping game several times. In the little PooYoo level of this game the player simply shakes the remote and the elephant PooYoo shoots water at balloons until they are all gone. (As shown in the video of Isaac below.) In the Big PooYoo level, the player actually has to point the Wiimote at the screen and aim at the balloons to pop them.

After you pop the balloons the first time, the game has an intermission and asks what shape the balloons were and then goes through a second round of balloon popping followed by a question of what color the balloons were. Then the PooYoos lead you through a nice dance routine. During the dance routine, by pressing different buttons on the Wiimote various effects happen on screen like spot lights, confetti and other fun. After the dance, you take a boat ride where again, pressing buttons on the Wiimote causes different effects on the screen. Isaac especially enjoys pushing the buttons and causing lights and the sun (a fan to him) to go across the screen.

Isaac has not played the big PooYoo level, but he enjoys the little PooYoo level quite a lot. Simply shaking the remote is a nice way for him to learn about the cause and effect relationship of the Wii. As I said, he truly enjoys pushing the buttons on the Wiimote that cause various visual effects to appear on the screen.

My biggest complaint with the game is that the few questions it asks are always the same. At one point the game asks what color the bubbles are or what color an umbrella was but the answer is always the same color. I would like it better if the color would rotate to make Isaac think a little more. There is a version 2 released, but I have not looked at it yet.

Ultimately, this game did exactly what I wanted it to do, especially for only $5.oo. Isaac is able to use the Wiimote and learn how it works. He is learning more about cause and effect relationships and a little about hand-eye coordination. Another learning piece I didn’t think about was that it counts on screen and out load to help re-enforce math skills. I have a feeling I will download the second episode before the end of the summer for Isaac to play. If you have a two – six year old who you want to introduce to the world of Wii, this is the game for you.

The park also includes two real swings and two baby swings along with two bouncy animal things (picture below on the left). The other feature that sets this park apart is that it has a half basketball court (which you can see in the picture on the right below and in the map below). Now, this can be a mixed blessing. One of the times we were there several guys were playing basketball and swearing quite a bit. It wasn’t anymore than you would hear in a YMCA gym pickup game, but I wasn’t a big fan of it with Isaac near by.

One of the things Isaac likes best about this park is that he can smash and bang on the metal parts (either the slide of the tube) to make lots of noise.

While the park is off of RT 120 it is easily accessible via trails. You can either get to it from Lake Street near the post office or you can get there from Alleghany if you go down Hojem and then Quist and them past the apartment building to get to the Grayslake Apartments.

View larger map

One note of caution, since the slides are metallic, they go very fast and the bottom of the slides are a little high and when Isaac is going full speed down these “metal death traps” (j/k) he tends to fall in his butt.

Overall I like this park because it is unique and the play structure is built in a way that it is safe for newly mobile kids and more stable ones. After age 5, I would be cautious in terms of there being enough to keep them occupied. If there were another big structure then Cullen Park could be one for all ages.

The summer began which meant we were starting our time with our pool passes. Isaac loves the water and he runs around in it and even when he falls in over his head you just pick him up real fast and then he is ready to go again after spitting the water out.

We also recently discovered the Grayslake Park District Splash Park, and Isaac loves this place too. It is just an adventure land with water toys he can run around in. He has been “bumping into” girls there also and saying, “Hi.” He is a gonna be a heart breaker I fear. (I love the one on the left!)

Much like the pool and the park. Isaac loves bath and is still quite exciting to get to splash around. I think really it is just that he likes violence and destruction much like Stitch from Lilo & Stitch.

Isaac got to meet the neighbors and play with them a few times and he is still happy playing on the porch with his house and in side with his horse. The horse works with the TV like a very simplistic learning video game, but he didn’t like that much the first time we tried. We will have to try again soon.

We have also found that Isaac thoroughly enjoys the park and playground equipment. He loves pulling on chains and making things swing and he loves climbing up things. That could be stairs, couches, slides, anything really. He isn’t as crazy about going down slides or things like that, but in time that will come. It is a good thing for now in that he is not hurting himself.

Lastly, Isaac loves food. People often ask me what he likes to eat, and he likes to eat pretty much anything. I think I have yet to find anything he doesn’t ear. There are of course some items he like more than others. He loves chicken nuggets, pancakes, blueberries, and macaroni and cheese to name a few.

However I fear that we are teaching him some bad habits, such as watching TV from the dinner table.

In this season’s finale, they brought back bikini girl to sing since she was a funny auditioner, which was fine I guess. (Kind of tasteless but she is the one that came to auditions in a bikini.) Then things went downhill from there. (Although it did bring a rather funny point when she walks out with a clearly new boob job and Ryan said, “Well I’d ask you what’s new…”)

First of all Kara felt the need to try and upstage bikini girl in a singing contest like she did during the auditions. This was a huge mistake. Kara Dioguardi is a judge on the show. She does not need to lower herself and prove herself as a better singer than bikini girl. This very act dropped my respect for her a lot. It just shows how petty, ego-centric, and immature Kara is that she felt the need to show up this obviously less competent performer.

So, on top of that, Kara flashes the crowd in a bikini under the guise of “charity.” I don’t even know how to fully express my disgust with this action, but what was the point? Is Kara so insecure with herself that she needs to show off her body to make a point? I am really surprised that Idol sunk to this level and if I had been watching the show with Isaac I would have been pissed! This is supposed to be a family and now there are TWO people in bikinis on stage. Kara needed to be the bigger person.

I of course will still watch Idol next season, and I will give Kara another chance because I am a forgiving person. But if Idol doesn’t pull itself our of the gutter I may need to change my Tuesday night viewing.

The first video is him being goofy and trying (and failing) to stand up.

This video shows him standing up.

Now, this is not a horribly dramatic situation, but it was a lot of things happening at once and I handled it all in stride without even really flinching, and I honestly think it was because I have been playing a lot of Mario Kart lately. I am not suggesting that we should learn to drive while playing Mario Kart, or that I would have crashed had I not played Mario Kart. But, right as the slush hit my windshield, I felt like when one of those squids inks my car in the game and you have limited visibility. Further, I find that I am often holding down the right D-Pad arrow to hold a banana behind me and holding down he button so I would be drifting at the same time to the get the mini-turbo while the ink is one the screen.

What may actually be happening is that Mario Kart doe not actually work on the driving skills, but rather it helps train your brain to compartmentalize motions at the same time. Until you have to try and do it, you perhaps don’t realize how difficult it can be at the same time to make a) your right and left hand do different actions at the same time that are actually intricate and b) make two different parts of your hand perform two separate actions while using both hands. I know there are still times when I let go to the D-Pad instead of the B-button while playing the game because the wires in my brain get crossed.

I find this skill is also emphasized in Guitar Hero. It find on the guitar (especially once the orange button is added) making my left hand function usefully while keeping the right hand strumming to be challenging during complicated sections. I find it even more challenging on the drums once you add the foot pedal. I have only played the drums once, but there were many times when I just wanted to hit the foot pedal but I would hit one of the drums also. The whole experience makes me appreciate piano players and drummers quite a bit. Guitar players also, but not quite as much as the drummers.

Some of your will mock me for saying that these games are difficult and that I am comparing them to real life, but until you try these activities, don’t mock. I am good at video games, and I am cooridnated, so that I find these tasks challenging means there is some difficulty to them. I get very excited when I find that video games or television has made my life better because people are always giving those mediums a bad rap. I also plan to make sure Isaac plays some of these games to develop advanced coordination. According to Time Warped, jugglers have 5% more gray matter than the average person, presumably because they have to coordinate both hands together. I wonder if people who play games like Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution have similar results.