For the last couple of years, the family has been waiting until Scotty and Carver were old enough to play Nintendo.
My kids didn’t have any type of gaming system when they were little. We weren’t big on gaming. Plus living on a farm, there were always plenty of other things to do. As the mom trying to herd the kids, I had enough trouble getting them to do things without arguing with them about gaming.
About then a friend of Buck’s got a gaming system and asked Buck if he wanted to buy his. Buck did. It was a Nintendo 64. The kids played on that and it went well. A year or two later when Christmas rolled around we bought an Xbox with Rock Band and Guitar Hero. They loved it and for the most part, we didn’t have any trouble with the kids playing it and not doing their chores. The reason…at Christmas, when we gave it, MY present was the XBox. It was mine two use as I wished….and often, I wished for them to use it. But, a strong message was sent that I was in charge of it…and chores came first.
A few years later Buck was moving out and was short of money. I told him that I would buy his Nintendo 64 from him. I only think I paid $25 for it. They system was WAY out of date. It was not long “cool”. I’ve kept it over the years. The Xbox died. The kids bought their own stuff. Me, I kept that Nintendo 64 stayed in good shape.
A couple of months ago I remembered it and was going to get it out to play but alas, those old systems need new connectors so they can work with modern televisions. Craig and Karl helped me order then at Thanksgiving when the weather was too icky to go outside, we set it up and taught grandsons, Scotty and Carver, how to play. Mario Cart is our favorite game.
Here we are…
I was always terrible at it. My kids smoked me every time. I finally have some competition that is more my speed. Check us out…
Honestly, we had a great time with it and the boys loved it.
Even the adults played!! It really was so much fun. We learned that one of the controllers was bad but I was able to go on eBay and get one for $15.
Lucy, Lilly, and Gannon, were a little too little but that was okay. ?
They were perfectly content to do other things…like hanging out with Uncle Karl.
I’m so happy I kept that old Nintendo 64. From time to time I had thought about throwing it away. I figured it wouldn’t work by the time I wanted it to.
When I had Carver those days while Gannon was in the hospital we played every night for a little while. It was the perfect thing for us to do to hang out together and keep our minds off Gannon.
Do any of you have any “old” toys that you’ve brought out and renewed? I’d love to hear your stories.
Last year we got out my (circa 1960s) old mousetrap game and played it! I was going to post it for sale on Facebook marketplace before Christmas (there are no youngsters in our family) and then forgot!
I loved Mousetrap when I was a kid! How fun that you kept it. I still have my old “Sorry” game from the mid 70’s, and my (now adult) kids still love to play it with me!
My brother gifted a Nintendo 64 to my kids last Christmas and they’ve had so much fun with it!
I still have our old Nintendo 64, too. I learned to play video games when my children were younger. Back then, you had to take turns to play. While waiting, the kids would tell me all sorts of things I never would have heard otherwise. It was a great conversation builder.
One game we don’t have is Mario Kart for the Nintendo 64. But we do have it on the Wii and used to play all the time when the grandkids were younger. Isaiah always smoked everyone. He’s definitely the game master.
My hubby an I have picked up various game systems over the years and even have an original Atari 2600. My favorite for it is Frogger. Our Nintendo 64 was a Goodwill purchase many years ago and if I remember correctly it came with 18 games for $30 including Mario Kart. Our daughter isn’t quite ready to begin playing but we’ll continue to hold onto them.
We still have our Commodore 64, and I think the Nintendo 64 as well. As for the kids who are too little to play the games, we used to give them a controller and let the demo of the game play. They could push all the buttons, and it would seem to them as if they were actually playing the game. They loved it!