How X-asperating!

Well, it took all of one week for me to exercise my parental authority over the despised X-Box. I unplugged every cord, every cable, gathered up the controllers, the games . . . I was prepared to return it TODAY. That thing has been nothing but trouble from the time it entered this house (in my humble opinion). I cannot imagine, if pressed, that any of the kids could honestly say, "Oh yeah, playing on the X-Box is SO fun!" The key word here is honestly. From my vantage point, they do nothing but gripe and groan every time the X-Box makes an appearance. And it hasn't affected only my kids, either! A couple of the kids' friends came over Thursday night while their dad and Randy went on a visit, and the boys (brothers Austin and Grant) asked if they could play Jedi Outcast on the X-Box. I said "Of course," and all the kids (my girls included) piled on to the couch to watch them battle it out.

It wasn't a complete fiasco, but Grant and Austin had a few words over the course of their session (similar to a spat Darcy and Peyton got into when they played Sonic together) and all I could think was, "This is EXACTLY why I don't want a gaming system in my house!" All of those who think I'm just an old fuddy-duddy, you are completely entitled to your opinion and I don't even mind if you share your opinion with me; all I know is we've got enough drama in our lives without some stupid X-Box coming in and riling everybody up! Perhaps I should clarify that these little tiffs are not the result of one child wanting to play and not willing to wait his/her turn; on the contrary, everybody is very good about taking turns, but it was all the griping DURING games that just made me SNAP!

I don't know, maybe I'm overreacting . . . it's just that I always thought video games were supposed to be fun. I mean, that's why kids play them for hours and hours, right? Maybe my kids are all just too competitive, but they don't seem to be having that much fun to me. After I'd been removed from the situation for a few hours, I decided that perhaps I'd been too hasty (even though I'd love nothing better than to return every single part lock, stock and barrel) and should simply make my expectations very clear to the kids, the greatest of which is NO COMPLAINING IF YOU'RE THE ONE WHO'S LOSING!

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You know how I told you about Sawyer taking a spill outside the Wallaces' hot tub on Friday night? Here is the result of that little mishap. Randy told me I shouldn't post this on my blog for fear that Children's Services might want to have a word with us, but I told him we had plenty of witnesses! You might notice that the bruise is on his left side when I clearly stated that his right side was the one covered in mud; Randy said that when he fell, he hit the stairs on his left side, which in turn caused him to bounce into the mud on his right side. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!