Bringing Video Games to Life

We do not watch a lot of tv in our household (who has the time?!) but at the beginning of the quarantine period we introduced the boys to the old Super Nintendo from the early 90s as a way to distract them from missing school and their classmates.  We were working our way through Mario World until we realized how obsessed Liam was becoming with it.  It was literally all he talked about every waking moment (he probably dreamed about it too).  We eventually put it away a few weeks ago because Ian and I could not handle Liam bringing it up every two minutes and begging us to help him pass Castle #5 (which we both tried to do for him but couldn't - it is really hard!).

Fast forward to three Nintendo-free weeks later and Liam is still talking about it.  Frequently.  For example, once the sun came out this afternoon, the boys and I went on a two hour forest walk.  The whole time Liam compared every aspect of our walk to a Mario World game level.

According to him we were entering "the Flood World level" where our mission was to make it to the Covered Bridge while foraging for wild garlic ramps (akin to mushrooms in Mario).

While Mama and Liam were Mario and Luigi, Seamus was dubbed "Yoshi" as, being the only one wearing rain boots, he was necessary to push Ali's stroller through the deeper flooded areas.  

I am not sure who Alistair was supposed to be (maybe a baby Yoshi?) but we nonetheless carted him along with us to the finish line.  I am happy to report that he did not turn into a 1 UP upon crossing the bridge.

We found special tokens throughout the level which Liam said gave us "extra lives".

Seamus used up one of his extra lives when he managed to ride his bike right into a ditch (akin to jumping off a cliff in Mario World, I suppose).  Seamus was initially very upset about this unexpected turn of events (see video) because "I just love this bike".  However, when I pointed out that, in fact, this was like getting a free bike wash, it magically made everything okay.  Nothing like a little positive spin to stop some tears, eh?

Goodness me.  What an adventure.  At least life with this trio is never boring.

As an added bonus, the boys foraged enough wild garlic to have both ramp tacos for dinner tonight as well as to make ramp omelettes for breakfast tomorrow.  Given the dearth of vegetables in this household right now, I will definitely not say no to adding some fresh greens to our diets.