Spring Saturday
I love it when the world is sunny. I love it even more when it is a sunny Saturday morning and my kids have actually gotten their work done. Things are put away and my house is orderly. All of this and it is only noon right now. Even better, I’m writing this blog entry upstairs where I can see the daylight instead of down in my basement office. I’ll transfer the entry to my internet connected computer later.
Yesterday Link spent all afternoon and evening playing with his Nintendog. When bedtime came he suddenly dissolved into tears. He told me he was crying because for the past three days he’d been only playing Nintendogs and had forgotten to snuggle his blankets. Further digging turned up the useful information that he’d been thinking about Nintendogs all day at school as well and it had distracted him from his school work. He was very remorseful about this and said that maybe we should ground him from video games for two years to make up for it.
I was very pleased that he was coming to terms with the reality of video game overload. He could tell his life was out of balance and was asking for help to re-balance it. I recommended that rather than a total ban on video games, we try to set some daily limits. Link agreed with that idea as well as he was able to do. He was very upset, completely convinced that this was a crisis of epic proportions. He spun in emotional circles repeating the same things over and over. For awhile Howard and I were completely unable to convince him that a good night’s sleep would solve most of it. What finally got through to him was making concrete plans for today that did not involve video games. We started with homemade waffles.
Today I’ve had to tell him to turn off the game twice. He isn’t allowed to play until after his work is done, but he’s been cheerful all morning and has spent long stretches of time playing games with Gleek and with Patches. For awhile he was even pushing Patches on a swing and trying to teach Patches how to pump his legs to keep going. I love when the kids play games together.
So, the house is clean, the kids have been nice to each other, Link made a breakthrough of sorts, and I’ve got fresh cut lilacs in a vase. It is being a good Saturday.