checkmate

Bryson Jr. was in the early morning Chess Club at school for the past few months & he loved it!  Getting up to make it to school early was a struggle on some of those Friday mornings, but he usually was excited to go and play a few matches and improve his game.  He even received 3rd place in the 3rd grade category when they had awards mid-March at the end of the Chess Club season.  He was so excited about receiving a trophy for this!      

Jacob wanted to play as well - so I signed him up, but his attendance was very sporadic.  He still learned and had a great time, and there has been a renewed interest in playing the game in the past month in our home!  The only downside, is that these kiddos often feel the need to get a little too involved in someone else's game (see below - Miss M is moving one of Jacob's pieces).  Trust me - it never turns out well when there are 3 people involved in a two-person game!    

The boys in particular are drawn to the chess board at all hours of the day.  They can't wait to try their hand at getting their opponent in Checkmate & usually start playing in the morning and have a game going until bedtime.  They are a pretty good match for one another - Jacob has really had to up his game in the last month to be a competitive opponent for Bryson.  They both love to rise to the challenge of giving the other a hard game to play - and sometimes their tempers rise as well, especially when they feel that injustice has been dealt and perhaps they have received a Checkmate call much earlier than they had wanted!

Last week I was trying to think of a good movie that the kiddos could enjoy on their weekend movie night, and when I was talking to my dad (who is a champion chess player in our family!) - it was remembered that the boys might like the movie 'Searching for Bobby Fisher'.  I looked on Netflix and it was there for a limited time, and so I put it into the Instant Que to watch and excitedly told the kiddos about the show...or what I could remember.  I don't know if I remember Washington Square so much from the movie, or if seeing it in real life when we were living in NYC brought back the memory from the movie.  Either way, the first few months we lived in the city we went down by Washington Square every Tuesday afternoon to take Madeleine to a Children's Choir she was in at NYU.  I loved walking by the park and looking in at all the folks that were seated on the tables in front of their chess boards deep in thought over the games of chess.

The children were sufficiently stoked to watch the movie after I had talked it up and up for days.  As we were getting ready to watch the movie, Bryson Jr. excitedly called out, "Who is ready to watch Searching for Fishy Bobber?!"

We all looked at each other, then started to laugh and couldn't stop.  I love when words get all mixed up - it makes for such a great laugh!

Now, unfortunately it was too bad we couldn't laugh as hard when we found out that 'Searching for Bobby Fisher' was no longer on Netflix.  We had missed the deadline!  I am definitely hunting that movie down to show to the kiddos - and hopefully by then the kiddos will be even better at their game and they'll still call it 'Searching for Fishy Bobber'....that just sounds so much better anyway! :)