Weeee! We bought a Wii!

We don’t have an X-box. We’re not big fans of video games –we don’t want
our son to be some testosterone, he-man, aggressive teen.

So, we have him in football.

As much as I dislike video games, I really can’t stand the whining, crying and
moping around the house --the constant complaints that there’s nothing to do—and that’s just from my husband.

I surveyed the house and I too realized, there was simply nothing to do. I stored all the board games, put the foosball table away, cleared out the tennis racquets, golf clubs, the 126 basketballs, footballs and Frisbees, I wedged the soccer net into the corner of the garage, and folded up the huge basketball hoop in the driveway. I put the Swing Away and the Perfect Pitch in their boxes. I packed up the art supplies, took away the talking globe, the baseball card collection, and even dismissed the yo-yo’s and water guns. I started to get weepy
while taking down my son’s dart board.

So many memories of doing absolutely nothing.

There would be no more nights of Texas Hold-‘em around the kitchen table, or 21 questions during dinner. No kick-the-can with the neighbor kids, or walks with the dog. Creating a home with nothing to do also meant dismantling the fire pit in the back yard where we roasted marshmallows with his friends. If this house was declared as a place where there was nothing to do, so be it.

It was clear he was right, the only way we could have any fun was to get a Nintendo Wii. So, my son, the fiscal conservative, bought one with his own money.

Suddenly, there was a lot to do and tons of kids to do it with! It turned out (and I found this shocking), that the entire world, which included every single child in his school, didn’t have a Wii. My son must have been mistaken.

Okay, truthfully, it’s fun. The cow racing alone is worth the money (my son’s money) and my sweet little cherub gets so much satisfaction at beating me and then using excessive celebration techniques, learned from the NFL, to demean me, what mother wouldn’t melt with emotion at seeing her boy so happy?

The only thing wrong with the game is that the characters—who are created to look like the players--win by jumping up and down, or lose by hanging their head in a very sad, defeated manner. (Think Saddam Hussein on the cell phone video). I am most familiar with the loser position and let me tell you, after awhile, it actually begins to affect you.

The game should come with a prescription for Prozac.

A major benefit to the Wii is that it’s more compact than a ping-pong table! (Except for the wide-screen TV you have to play it on.) So when there’s nothing to do in the future, including playing the boring Wii, it will be easier to toss.