I finally caved... kind of.

I am anti-video gaming for kids.  Now wait, wait, before anyone gets up in arms, I am not saying you are a bad parent if you let your kid play video games.  I just don't like the idea of letting your kids play video games for hours daily.  I remember being young and using my imagination, reading books, playing outside... and I didn't hate my childhood!  My brothers had a Nintendo and then a Super Nintendo, but I rarely played it and if I did, I had to pay a penny per game.

We had a Wii.  L liked to watch people play, but didn't really want to play.  A liked to play... scratch that, loved to play.  But the Wii was in the living room and they had to ask to play and we usually said no, so they forgot about it for the most part.  The Wii began collecting dust so we decided to sell it.

I know a lot of people who have given their children iPads, tablets, Kindles, Nintendo DS, PSP (do those still exist) along with the traditional systems like Wii, Playstation, XBox 360 and some are addicted, some aren't.  Some parents regulate usage, some don't.  I definitely don't want my children to have anything with internet access right now.

So David and I were talking about this road trip we plan to take with the kids to Florida this summer.  It is an 18 hour drive.  I know how boring it was as a kid taking a 5 hour drive to my grandparents' house a few times a year.  At one point we had Gameboys or Walkmans and I would bring books, but it was still a long trip.  I also remember we used to use our own money and when my dad stopped at Sam's we would buy the biggest and cheapest pack of AA batteries we could find!

Now to the denouement of my story: we toyed with the idea of getting them a DS for the trip.  I thought it was a lot of money to spend on L when he wouldn't understand it very well, but David felt it wasn't fair to get A one and not L.  I couldn't do it... I tried, but I couldn't do it.  So we ventured to the toy section and we stumbled upon LeapFrog and V-Tech systems that are similar in concept to tablets and the DS, but are educational and more little kid friendly.  After what felt like an hour scouring over the details, specifications, pros and cons, we settled on getting them each a LeapsterGS, which plays Leapster Explorer games.

Today is day two that they've had it.  I'm not thrilled about how much they ask to play it, but I am going to stick to my guns about limiting how much they play it so they don't become junkies.  I can already tell they aren't going to be happy with me about it, but I still believe that kids need to do real play, not just video play.

Are you for or against giving kids gadgets?  What, if anything, do your kids play?

New Year's Resolution... Broken!

Okay, so if you read my resolutions for the year, you will recall one of them was to blog more and blog better.  Then if you read the post right underneath this you will see it was over a month and a half ago.  Here's why:

1) I'm busy... and I mean busy... like some days I don't have time to eat busy (too bad I'm not losing any weight!)  Between my three grad classes this semester, having a preschooler in a school 17 miles south, a first grader in school here and teaching at a college 17 miles north, I spend a lot of time driving.  And then there's 8 month old Baby H, who has recently decided he doesn't want to nap more than 30 minutes a day.  And to top it off, there has been a lot to get done for my wedding reception in April.

2) Blogging takes away from fulfilling my other resolutions.  If I clear out time to blog, I am losing time that I could be spending playing with my kids, spending time with my husband or working on school work.  Usually by about 9pm every night David and I are passed out on the couch, attempting to watch something on DVR.  Today I just happened to have a few minutes while Baby H is asleep and the kids are playing together, I'm in between loads of laundry and my school work is done.  David is working 12 hours (gotta plow those snowy roads) so I won't get to see him until 7pm.  Today is a snow day for both my kids and I as all our schools were canceled.

3) I don't have much to say.  Really.  Yes, I'm busy, yes I have thoughts, but I just haven't felt like sharing them.  I have had a couple annoying things come up that I would love to rant about, but because they involve people who know people who read this or people who might read this, I will refrain from airing my dirty laundry on those subjects.  I haven't felt passionate about anything enough lately to talk about it.

There you have it, the reason for my absence.  I am going to attempt to write another blog after this and postdate it, plus I need to get a bunch of reviews in, but I should probably get to those dishes soon... we'll see what happens.

Eavesdropping on imaginary conversations.

This isn't the first time I've eavesdropped on my daughter talking to her imaginary friend.  I don't even know if it is her imaginary friend.  It could be that she is being followed by a ghost or spirit and she thinks there is actually someone there or perhaps she is just talking to hear herself talk.

Often times when she is way overdue for bed, she will act irrational and the littlest things will make her think the world is out to get her.  It is usually at those times that she will lie in her bed and cry and start saying things like, "Mommy hates me and I really didn't want to eat what we were having for dinner, but no one understands that I don't like it."  Now, granted this is probably for the benefit of whomever is in earshot because she wants us to know she isn't happy.

But it's the other times that seem kind of wackadoo.  I will catch her talking at length about some random topic and there is nobody there to listen.  Case in point, right now I am sitting in the kitchen with all the lights off.  She thinks everyone is asleep.  She was just in the bathroom and I could hear her perfectly.  She started telling this story about how she used to have a girl kitten and a boy kitten and the girl died and she found it dead.  Then she started talking about a dog we used to have... I wasn't sure what she was talking about with the dead kitten, but maybe that was at her dad's house after I moved out.  But anyway, she was just telling these stories as if someone were there to listen.

If I ask her who she is talking to she will just tell me that she isn't talking to anyone.

I know imaginary friends are normal, but I just feel like this isn't an imaginary friend.

Thoughts?