Yes, the PS2 IS Your New Mommy!

Confession: I have been letting Patrick play A LOT of PS2. What else is there to do?! There's ice everywhere, and frankly my brain is mush from dealing with all this house stuff. So, I would say for the past three days, the boy has spent about five hours a day playing.

Before you all throw things at your computer screens, there is almost always someone playing with him. DH and I love to play almost as much as he does, and we got the SpongeBob SquarePants Movie game the other day, which is super-fun. Frankly, I would play all day too, if I could.

I don't know why I feel so defensive about it. The boy has been reading fluently for months, and can do simple math, both of which I honestly feel were encouraged by the gaming, since before he could do those things he was desperate to know what the words on the screen said and how many more apples he needed to get to win the prize. It's helped him learn to take turns, since many games are one-player, and he willingly passes off the controller after two tries at any one thing. His hand-eye coordination is excellent, and his problem-solving skills are good, too. We have no violent games. He's rarely in there alone playing, but at least when he is I know exactly what he's doing while I'm in the shower/on the phone/cleaning up dog poop outside. And of course, we do other things every day as well, like read books and play board games and go out.

I know there are a lot of people out there who turn their noses up at video games, especially for children. They're the same people who claim not to watch TV, like they're too good for Discovery Channel or the weekly dose of The Soup.

I think it's the whole Parenting As A Competitive Sport thing that makes me defensive.
'My McKenzie has never SEEN a TV!'
'Oh, little Olivia is too busy with gymnastics/ballet/quantum physics to condescend to electronic stimulation.'

What can I say? Well, I could say, stick my controller where the sun don't shine, but I'm probably going to need it later.