Video Games

I have to be honest about this one: I hate video games. I was horrible at them when I was little and they only existed as arcade games at the YMCA. I really hated people watching me lose so quickly. I'm sure if I would have practiced more, I could have gotten good at them, but since I didn't like being embarrassed, I never played them.

And then came the Atari. Oh, how I loved the Atari. I could be bad at a game in private. We didn't have an Atari for the longest time. I would always play PacMan over at a friend's house. But Santa brought us an Atari for Christmas one year and I was absolutely ecstatic. I remember my brother mapping out the game Pitfall on a huge piece of paper. He wasted HOURS on that thing!

But we never did get PacMan and I never did become a video game addict. And now that I have kids, I'm very grateful for that.

I just hate video games and my disdain for them is getting worse and worse.

We were with another family one day and while the parents were off procuring food, their four-year-old son was telling us about a game they have on the Wii and how you have to knock some guy down and then you hit him and you kill him and you kill him and you kill him. *shudder*

And this past weekend, we were at a friend's house and their four-year-old daughter was playing some game on a Nintendo DS. Our kids were desperate to play with her, but she sat there, completely entranced by that game for at least 30 minutes until they tore her away.

We had been considering getting a Nintendo DS for the kids for Christmas so they could do reading and spelling games, but after about 2 minutes of watching our friend's daughter play on this thing, we both simultaneously looked at each other and mouthed, "Maybe not!"

Nope, our kids are going to be the unlucky, deprived kids of the neighborhood. Because as long as they've still got imaginations, they're playing with them. Period.