The Calm before the Storm

My kids are all excited. My Oppositional Defiant child even tried to pull a 5 minute melt-down over 20 minutes worth of homework because it was his last night of playing. His more sane emotions quickly kicked into gear, he whizzed through his homework and hurriedly plugged his brain in for it’s last couple of hours of brain zapping before tomorrow’s de-tox. Tonight is the binge before the diet, the calm before the storm, the feast before the famine (wait I already said that), for tomorrow, their little minds have to re-engage and actually think, and heaven forbid, they may even have to interact with other human beings. We of course have let them go overboard this past week on X-box, X-box 360, Play station II, Wii, Nintendo DS, and 3 portable laptops, in addition to two other computers playing different games at the same time.

Why indulge them? Probably, since they are more than willing to go along with our yearly tradition of NO ELECTRONIC ENTERTAINMENT OF ANY KIND FOR A WHOLE MONTH. I think this is our 5th year and, without exception, the month that always gets chosen is February because it's the shortest month of the year. I didn’t feel the need to mention that February has an extra day this year; somehow I don’t think they will notice.

I know, I know your eyes are bugging out with the list of gaming systems I mentioned above. Blame it on my oldest child (husband). No I guess you can blame it on me because I let him talk me into them. See you can stomp a mean DDR on X-box, Rock Band and Guitar Hero I, II and III on the 360, Kingdom Hearts on Play station, and well the most perfect gaming system invented, the Wii, makes you actually use something besides those chubby little fingers. Sure your fingers and maybe a couple of limbs get a good workout but do you notice the lack of tone in the facial expressions. It get's worse with age.

It’s like attack of the Zombies have infected everyone.

And the posture, Oh the Horror!

I can always dream that maybe I’ll talk them into getting rid of all systems except the Wii, but I won’t bring that up until the end of the month. On the last day of last year's month, my O.D.D. child even mentioned that we probably shouldn't even turn the T.V. back on, because he liked how things were with it off. I about had to pick my jaw up off the floor after that one.

I am slowly making headway against the brain sucking devices, last year I talked them into getting rid of our Dish network, that was my sacrifice. I really miss my HGTV! Now the only shows we watch are DVD’s, or some favorite series we bought off I tunes. I love the fact that there are no commercials.

The only exceptions to the rules are that we can use computers for email, to do homework, and sorry T-Rev there is no homework merit to be found at Homestarrunner.

I also got permission from my husband to continue my Blog. I called it therapy and seeing as how I need all the help I can get – he agreed. I can’t however surf, and believe me that will be hard. What else am I going to do with my time? Oh, yeah, I could actually take care of the kids and keep de-cluttering the house. So don’t worry about me.

I predict that the phrase, ‘I’m bored, there’s nothing to do,’ will be said too many times to actually count within the first couple of hours. But if it’s anything like in years past, slowly but surely, I know they will figure something out.

Wish us luck, I’m really going to need it.