My Mom, the Gamer

One of the things my dad has been wanting for the past year is a Wii. My mom somehow managed to snag one a few days before Christmas by being in the games section of Walmart as 3 new Wiis went up for grabs. Prior to Christmas day, my mom has never been interested in playing games on a console or the computer. And it wasn't for lack of computers or consoles in the house. My dad was an early adopter back in the 70s, so they had both a computer and an Atari a few years after they married.

After watching my dad and brother play some of the Wii Play games on Chrismas Day, my mom decided to take a turn late that evening. After noticing that she logged about 8 hours in two days, we convinced her to make her own mii. It's been really interesting to see which of the mini games she likes. She enjoys bowling, ping pong, the bubble pop game, and the mii finder game. I think the biggest surprise was that she likes the Duck Hunt update. She hasn't quite worked up the nerve to play Super Mario Galaxy or the old Mario games ... yet.

The other night, she started playing about 8:30 or so. My sister decided to visit friends and didn't plan to come back until the next day. Midnight rolled around and I mentioned that it was getting late, since she's usually up before 6am. It was pretty hard for me to keep a straight face when she responded - "Oh, I was just waiting up for your sister". . . after my sister had already called to let her know that she made in ok. I think my mom finally gets the whole gaming thing.

“Not that we’re counting…”

When we first started playing Animal Crossing a few years ago, we used to joke about what would happen if we stopped playing for a couple of years and then picked it back up again. Well, I decided to play last night while it snowed. Weeds were everywhere, took me over an hour to get them cleaned up. Everyone I spoke to didn't let me forget I hadn't talked to them in over 26 months... I sent letters to everyone and they seemed to have forgiven me today, so all is well.

Never trust a quietly playing child…

Paul gave me a bit of a scare this morning. He'd slept in til about 9 or so and was quietly playing in his crib. Since he seemed happy, I let him play for a bit on his own. I was tidying up a few things on the coffee table to prepare for gaming night when I heard him start screaming. I ran up the stairs, and he was half out of his crib. I don't know how he managed it, but he managed to get about halfway out of the crib. He was balanced on his stomach, but his feet couldn't touch anything to push off of. I was just very glad that he was ok. I told him not to do that again, but he gave me his intentionally cute look. Read more »

Make Over Day

Yesterday, Paul and I headed over to Herndon to hang out with Tamara. We had originally planned to go to the Reston Zoo and then to the Reston Used Bookshop afterwards. However, we ran a bit late and it was a bit too hot to take Paul out, so... Read more »