Ok, I admit it - I am a closet Nintendo DS Lite user. Or at least I would like to be. Parents are busy people, after all. Who has time for video games?

Ever since the kids got their Nintendo DS systems for the holidays my interest has been piqued. Of course, while playing Mario or Lego Star Wars II may be fun, I can’t justify the time involved in mastering such a game.

Enter Brain Age. A friend mentioned it to me and, hey, I am all for anything that can improve my brain function and possibly reduce my incidences of “senior” moments, which seem to be occurring more frequently these days! Parenting will do that to you, I guess.

BrainAge tests your brainpower by giving you various tests to determine what they call “brain age” (thus the name …. no rocket science required here!). The younger score you get the better, with an age of 20 being the best. The tests are fun to do and don’t take much time at each sitting. Some expamples are simple multiplication, something that resembles a dot to dot but you have to do it in a certain sequence, counting puzzles, and reading aloud. There are also brain exercises to do on a daily basis.

But for me, the best part about this game is that it includes sudoku! I recently began doing the puzzles in the newspaper but never had a long enough stretch of time to complete them. Before I finished the puzzle, the paper would be in the recycling. In the Brain Age game the sudoku is included as a separate unit so you can play it apart from the other tests. Also, you can save a game in progress and quit at any time. This great thing to do if you spend a lot of time waiting for your kids while they participate in extracurricular activities. And the game even has hints and tricks for solving the puzzles so I can actually experience a bit of sudoku success.

This morning I had to take the kids to the eye doctor. As we waited and waited they played away on their DS’s. After fruitlessly asking nicely for a turn, imagine the surprise of the other waiting patients when I exercised a parent’s right of eminent domain and seized the unit for my use! I think I need to get one of my own.