Almost 4, Almost a boardgame geek

(warning: This is an "Isn't my child so cute?" post)

I play a lot of games with my almost 4-year-old daughter.  Most of the time when I ask her if she wants to play a game, she declares "Yeah! Let's play a game I've never played before!"  While I have a large collection, this occasionally proves problematic, as lots of them aren't quite suitable for a 3-year-old.  But whenever she decides she is too overwhelmed by the rules, or is just sick of playing, she suggests "Ok, now let's play my version.", which are usually an extremely complex set of steps with no actual goal, but she imitates the general structure of game rules quite well.

A week or so ago, we were in a games store and she'd look around commenting which ones we had at home and asking about games she thought looked interesting.  Then, she turned to me, perplexed, and asked "Daddy, where's Race for the Galaxy?".  This is a game she's never played before, just heard me talk about.  In fact, she's asked, and I've demurred saying we'd play it when she was older.  Her response, "Ok, we'll play that when I'm 6."  Who knows, maybe she'll be ready.

A few weeks ago, after trying a game that was a bit too hard for her (Chateau Roquefort), I suggested we play something a little less complicated.  She protested, "I like complicated games.  Let's play another complicated one."

Finally, today we had some friends over and one of their kids said to her, "You have a lot of games.  How many do you have?" and she replied, "I don't know, but Daddy could check the database."