As if I needed another technological addiction, Les has gotten me hooked on playing Brain Age and Brain Age II on his Nintendo DS. The games are a series of training sessions designed to develop various parts of your brain, followed by a test that tells you what age your brain is functioning at. There's a lot of math and counting, but also some word stuff like reading aloud or unscrambling rotating letters. The games also have a Sudoku feature (I think I never fully understood Sudoku until I tried it electronically) and a "relaxing" game that's similar to Tetris.
Aside from tracking your own progress in the training games from day-to-day, you can also compare yourself to others who are playing on the same memory card, and that adds a fun level of competition. It's been interesting to see how Les is good at some training games (he's waaaay better than I am at the syllable count and rock-paper-scissors) and how I am good at others (I am better at the word blend and calendar count training).
The game also has little side "conversation-starters" -- both of you draw a firetruck and then can compare drawings, for instance. Les and I have had fun noticing that his drawings always have some kind of action going on in them, whereas mine seem to be a still-life of some sort (boy - girl differences?); and that I usually draw things facing to the left, whereas he faces everything to the right.
It seems that our brain age levels vary from day to day. Les's lowest brain age has been 21 (that's 17 years younger than his actual brain age, for those who are keeping track!) and my lowest brain age has been 26 (not as dramatic a difference from my actual brain age, but still good).
The only bad thing is that I don't get to practice up when he's on the road because he takes the Nintendo DS with him. The interesting thing is that he seems to be a lot "younger" when he's NOT around me. He says I make him "stupid with love." I just think he can focus more. But "stupid with love" is a cute idea!
