Be Careful What You Wish For

I have been into video games since I was 5 or 6 when we got an Atari 2600 console. It was supposed to be a present for my dad, but I ended up more or less taking it over. Later we got a Commodore 64 and I still have fond memories of times spent with that. Up until fairly recently I pretty much always had a game going on. I figured that this would be something I could do with kids too.

I used to play more video games with Lily, but she doesn't care much anymore. She will play Super Mario Galaxy 2 with Noah and me. Frankly, she is a lot more help as Player 2 than Noah. We have some fun with this.

Noah, on the other hand, is a full-fledged addict. He gets a total of an hour of electronics time every day. He can spend that playing games on an iPhone, on the laptop, or watching videos. The time we spend together does not count against this time. It serves as a nice way for Amanda to break up the afternoon with him, but it can cause some strife when it is time to quit. He doesn't always quit a good session of Angry Birds easily.

Where it gets me is how this dominates his thoughts and conversation. We'll be talking about something as a family and then Noah will just start talking about Bee Mario. It is at these times I realize that I have created a little mini-me.

This particularly annoys Amanda. We got used to Lily and how complex she can be. She thinks high and philosophical thoughts. Or she comes up with these imaginative worlds and stories. Noah just keeps talking about Bowser's Castle in Mario Kart Wii. We realize that this is a boy/girl thing and that it will get better, but for now it makes me realize that I am responsible for this and that we need to be glad that he wants to talk about stuff. It was touch and go for a while there with Noah and talking.

One funny bit that came from this though. The boss at the end of World 3 is Bowser Jr. Noah kept calling him, "Bowser Junior Mints."