You're only as old as Wii Fit says you are

On the day we got the Wii Fit, it said my "age" was 29 years old.

I'm not ashamed to say I did a little dance.

But I've been getting older and older every time I get on the damn thing.

Still, I've logged hours more on it than anyone else in the family.

And I keep getting older.

Just like in real life.

Humpf.

Some people save up for college, we save up for therapy

photo by tray.

I'm sitting here on the couch and my son is next to me crying with his DS.

Yes, you heard right.

Crying.

He has a new game, just opened it, a Mario-themed something or other.
This often happens when he sits down with a new game.
Tears.
Not because he can't do it, because he's really quite talented in the video game department, but because he doesn't know how to save yet , or quit or... you get my drift.

So he's right here next to me, and I don't usually blog with him so close by (because, what if he sees!), but...
he's CRYING.

And every time I ask if I can help, he just snaps at me "I'm fine!"

But, uh, Dude, I don't know if you realize this, but you're crying. Out loud.

In the past I've come down on him and told him he can't play if it's going to make him so upset, which then makes him cry harder and LOUDER. And yell all this nonsense that I'm a bad mother and I'm too hard on him.

"Hey, look," I say to him, "My mother yelled and screamed and carried on like a banshee, and I turned out... oh yeah... huh.... sorry buddy."

And then I add a few more dollars to his "Therapy Fund".

So today, I'm not yelling. I'm being mindful and I'm purposely not yelling. All day. Up to and including bedtime.

I didn't yell this morning when we had to walk home from the bus stop, (without getting on the bus - thus missing the bus), because we needed to change underwear, because, and maybe this is too much information for you, because there was a whisper, a veritable memory of a hint of moisture on his undergarments.

I helped him get dressed again and I drove him to school and I didn't yell, and what's more I didn't pull the silent, evil guilt trip either.

And now, I'm sitting next to him and I'm not interfering. I'm not going to yell at him to put the damn game away, because holy crap that crying is getting on my last nerve. I'm going to be a presence next to him, actually he is squashed right up against me, needed the pressure, and I'm going to calmly write this post and offer encouragement occasionally.

side note:
I know there are some people out there that think video games are bad for you, and I agree... if they are violent, or if you lose. (Like me, personally, I lose a lot, so for me video games are bad.) But my son and husband play these little Mario games and their brains start to swirl around and they begin  to think in binary and I look at them funny and  smile and walk away because, my god, one of them is certain to make  a heap of money someday with their binary-based-video-game-playing brains, and then they will do something nice for me because I didn't give them a lot of shit about playing their video games.

I think the crying is like a steam-vent, a safety valve. He's just releasing pressure.

OR maybe he just shouldn't be playing video games. (But then how will he ever make any money once we move to a completely video-game based economy?)

There's no way to know for sure until he's a teenager and he makes it his mission in life to tell me how I've failed him.

Maybe I should just add a little more to that Therapy Fund of his while I'm thinking of it.

More like a pony now...

Ever since Daniel was 3 years old I have repeatedly dragged out my ladder so that I could climb on my oh-so-high horse and proclaim for all the world to hear that we were not going to get a console game system until Daniel turned 7.

It was a matter of economics, I said.

I didn't want to buy multiple game systems, I said.

He would be too young to play the games, anyway, I said.

Never mind that the child has been playing the Game Boy Advance since he was three, and that we now have 3 GBA's and 3 DS-Lite's (so we can all play games together).

I held firm.

Until Daniel got scarlet fever.

And then I thought that the best thing for us as a family, while he convalesced, was a Wii. So much for resolve. But have you seen the commercials?  They are impossible to resist.

My high-horse has been sent out to pasture.
____________________________________________________________

This weekend there was quite a bit of Super Paper Mario being played on the Wii, by both Daniel and myself, and I found myself getting annoyed.

It was an ancient, deep-set annoyance. One I have encountered many times since grad school.

It was the annoyance of the "token female character".

I should explain:
Grad school involved gender studies, many hours of not understanding Foucault, and the lost science of ethnography. Basically.

Whole classes were spent discussing women in the media.

And it occurred to me yesterday that Princess Peach is a woman in the media. And I came back to a point that I first struggled with academically lo, those many years ago.... which is, Why do they all have to be so girly and annoying?   

Mario can flip from 2D to 3D, (very cool, btw), but all Princess Peach can do is puff up her skirt, or protect herself with her umbrella.

Can't Luigi get kidnapped and call for help for once? I mean, why do the girl characters have to be so...

Effeminate?

I don't know, maybe it's just my own latent misogynistic tendencies. Or maybe, Princess Peach just reminds me of my Prom with all the girls in those crazy dresses.

It's not like I'm happy with the Lara Croft alternative, either. But at least she's competent.

Or maybe I'm just mad because I suck at video games.

In bed with snacks

I mentioned before that we are a Nintendo family. We have embraced the DS Lite as if it were a new religion. We now have three so that we can play the games together. (You know what they say: The family that plays video games together... uh...hmm... eats Cheez-its in bed together?)

Anyway, we have been having a blast playing Mario Kart together. It's more fun with three people because we yell out strategies and push each other off the road!

For Christmas, Daniel just got his own copy of Animal Crossing so he can play that with me. (Yes, I play it every. single. day.)

I love these games because there isn't any violence. And it's really cute to see Daniel get so excited about "coming to visit me in my town".

When Daniel turns seven we'll invest in the Wii, (my husband can't wait), but until then if you hear yelling coming from our house, don't worry we're just vegg-ing out on the bed with our trio of DS's.