Cardboard Challenge

I have been tied down very badly with work. But seeing so much sharing about Caine's Arcade in Facebook, I couldn't get off my mind from those cardboard. It was contagious and I was tempted to bring the girls to attend Cardboard Dreams, to learn about the fun of so-called "Minimum resources, maximum sense of achievement". It was our mantra back in University days, where we always given limited funding to run a project. And we made wonders!

But I can't. Works are piling and the boss' voice is stern, incredibly. While considering to go or not to go, I showed Jiejie about Caine's Arcade. At the same time, I found out that my very nice friend, Evelyn and her daughter, Layla were attending, I thicken my face and asked her to bring Jiejie along with them too. She responded with green light! We were thrilled!

And so our very short journey of building a game with cardboard had began from there.

The ball is meant to be hit and target to fall at the toilet paper roll on the bottom right.

Frankly, my elder daughter isn't a dreamer, she is a little lazy to be a builder. She watched the video of Caine's Arcade over and over again, pointing at different thing each time and declaring it as the object she would attempt to do. She then picked a simple plan to execute: make a hole at two opposite side of the box and let meimei to crawl in and out. The actual cardboard was only given to her on Monday afternoon, four days before the event. I taught her to sketch her plan, but she was rather cut-the-box-and-see-how-first. By Wednesday, I got anxious and tried to influence her and she gently agreed my 'suggestion' by nodding her head and accepted few adjustment to her creation. I thought, ahem! It's done! 

However, at the very last minute, as in Thursday night, less than 20 hours before the event, she watched the video again, finally set her mind and changed the idea. She wanted to build a Pinball machine! Or something equivalent. This time I suppressed my eagerness (after reading some sharing in SMB), head over to kitchen and got my self busy with dish-washing, left her with the father to re-birth her games. You know, guys are better in guiding rather than interfering. 

I reminded my self that my very simple thought was wanting her to enjoy the process of discovering numerous possibilities through the building of the game and giggles to the maximum level when she gets to play with other creations. It would be bonus if other kids enjoy her game too.

SC and I only helped out the taping and mending the box when she went into her dreamland.

Photo credits: Rachel @ MalMal Our Inspiration

On the actual day itself, she was jolly brought to E's place, together with her creation. I had planned to leave office early, asked permission a day before and the boss generously agreed. It would be great if I could at least join them for lunch at Botanic Garden, peek at everyone's satisfactory, or something like E suggested me to take a couple hours of "Me-time".

But things don't always go according to plan. It was a long haul, not just one matter but few kept me in my cubicle till 3pm! I didn't even have lunch and straight head back to E's place. 

When I picked her up, the first thing she told me was that no one played her game during the event. I can hear the voice with a bit of disappointment. She sounded more cheerful very soon when I asked her more about the day. Bit by bit about Angry Bird, story-telling session by Aunty Sarah, Aunty Jasmine's games, play with Dot, Poppy, and many other kids that she can't tell me the names (I'm sure she met Malcolm) . She highlighted that the Submarine was too fun to play with! I was beaming while listening. I reckon she enjoyed her self very much in playing other games and the pain for 'being unwanted' was healed unknowingly. Or rather like what SC was saying, being playful her, she probably too busy to run around to explore other games and left hers unattended. 

Either version, we are glad that she shows positive attitude and didn't grumble about it to us.

Photo credits: Jayne 

Toward the end of the day, Evelyn and other mums in SMB started to share more and more of the pictures and stories about the event. It got me hooked into the mood of cardboard again. They were so kind to tell me little bit more about her in the event and made me felt extremely heartwarming. I began to put pieces of info together and imagined my self travel back in time and this time, I was there with my girl and witness the fun! I giggled from ear to ear.

Didn't I say I meet great people in Mommyland?  

Photo taken by E @ The Bottomsup Blog

So she didn't make a sophisticated games to wow people, but she had a blast and very much wanting to go for another Cardboard Dreams again. And I'm think she learnt what I hope she would learn from there.

It was really simple: minimum resources, maximum achievement. In this case, maximum happiness. Often, it comes with creativity and perseverance in the package. You can tell I enjoy the process very much, seeing my girl building her little happiness from scratch. Thanks to Sarah for organised this.

One thing for sure, Little Bomber likes to play the games that her sister made. The girls have been playing with it everyday.