I sit down to write after a thrilling game of bowling, in which I scored the highest I ever have in my life and thoroughly trounced the competition--Charis, Tobin, and Arden. No, we didn't go out to a bowling alley on Christmas day; we're playing our new Wii!
Ted and I had been discussing for awhile the pros and cons of getting a Wii for the family in lieu of Christmas gifts. On the one hand, we are strangely averse to screen time at our house in general. (And by "we" I mean "we parents," of course.) I much prefer to see my kids reading or doing some creative play than sitting in front of a computer or television screen. But on the other hand, a Wii is so interactive! We've been jumping and running all over the place the last couple of hours! And the whole family (minus Lucan, who was very much ready for bed) is talking and laughing together. This is no ordinary computer game, as I'm sure many other families have already discovered! I must confess that the possibility of Ted being deployed for a year also factored HEAVILY into this decision, as I am well aware of my limitations and the need we will all have for some space!
So anyway, when I saw a post on our homeschool message board that a family was selling a Wii system along with a few games, I jumped at the offer. Since she had posted at 1:30 a.m. and I was up at 5:30 a.m., I happened to be the first to respond. We got the system plus the original Wii Sports, Outdoor Adventure plus the pad that goes with it, and Fitness Coach (which I am looking forward to trying out in an effort to lose all this holiday fudge-pudge). We did have to locate another remote, but Ted did some Amazon magic and got what we needed. All in all, we spent less on everything than if we had simply bought the system new, minus any games or pads, so we feel pretty good about our purchase.
We saved the Wii surprise for the very end of the day. (I'll blog about our whole Christmas day in the next post.) We gave the stockings back to the kids with various components inside each stocking. On the count of three, we had them pull out what was inside. They looked a little puzzled at first, and then we said something like, "Do you think maybe we need something to make all these things work?" The look on their faces when they realized what was going on was priceless!! There was much jumping and dancing around, quite a few "Woohoos!", and lots of hugs and "Thank you, Mom and Dad!"
Setting up the "Miis" was an adventure in and of itself, and we laughed ourselves silly picturing Arden with a beard and Grandma J bald. We've all had some turns, and although some kids have been miffed now and then with what they felt was an unfair decision as to whose turn it was to do what, for the most part the kids have been good sports and are having a ball.
I think Wii made the right decision. :-)
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