The other day, Graham had a friend from school come to the house after school. This particular friend happens to be a year older and he is also American (just a little background for context). After a few minutes of playing in Graham's room, his friend emerged asking, "Can I watch TV?"
"We don't have a TV connection here." I said.
"Do you have a Wii?"
"Nope."
"Oh. We have a Wii at our house. What about a Nintendo?"
"Um, sorry, no."
"Do you have any kind of games?" he persisted.
"Well, we have board games and card games."
"Oh. How about any movies? Can I see all your movies?"
"We only have a few..."
"Um, how about milk? Can I have some milk?"
"Yes. That we do have!" I exclaimed, as I jumped up to pour him a glass, happy to change the subject. I started wondering if Graham is going to have trouble convincing friends to come to his house since we don't have video games and big screen televisions with millions of channels. Graham is planning to go to this friend's house next week, where he will most likely get to play the Wii for the first time and then he will probably come home and beg for one and wonder why we don't have one. I knew it was only a matter of time before the whole video game thing became an issue. I just didn't think it would happen at 4.5 years old. I was thinking more along the lines of 14.5 years or so...
It's not that we're against video games or television or anything (television, maybe, because we hate commercials). Tony and I just simply don't care for them. We prefer to waste our time making French apple tarts, reading, and helping Graham build things with Lincoln Logs. I know. Boring, right? But, I assure you, we are okay with our simple, boring selves. We're just hoping that Graham will follow suit.
Anyway, as Graham's friend was leaving, he noticed Graham's collection of sticks that I managed to put outside.
"Wow!" he exclaimed. "Look at those sticks! I don't have sticks at my house!"
I wiped my brow in relief and said a little prayer of thanks to the sticks.
Maybe Graham's house will be cool after all.
Well let me tell you....a century ago, alright in the 70's ish, during Lent we would give up stuff, you know like TELEVISION! With 5 little ones under foot, actually teenagers, it was a master accomplishment 'cause we actually did give up TV. By then we even had CABLE and could have watched more than 3 stations. (You really have to realize that we lived in a remote community 7000' in the mountains - actually surrounded by mountains, some reaching at least 12,000' -slight exageration on my part - and with the air so light, to receive TV was a MIRACLE!
ReplyDeleteSorry, got off on the wrong foot there again. I just wanted to let the world know that not have TELEVISION for 40 odd days was not the end of the same. It was tuff I gotta say. Daggers of stares came to Mom and Pop, but we never relented. Within days, we all were off in our other worlds. Can't really remember what the kids did, they were never home. Always visiting friends at night (crawled out of their windows you know). Now i'm not one to charge these individuals with breaking house rules, but you know kids.
So, since the Blaines are raising such a wonderful little boy who NEVER STOPS PLAYING WITH HIS TOYS (for goodness sakes, is that what they are for?), I'd say no TV, no WII, no VIDEO GAMES is another MIRACLE in the 21st century. Well now I've said my piece and will go read the paper.
Remember how frustrated we were with the way Henry mastered Nentendo. He saved the Princes and shot every duck while you, Colleen, and me were strggeling to conquer Wold 1 and getting laughed at by the bird dog. We lived where winter was longer than the other 3 seasons, combined, so Nentedo was a nice, warm, form of entertainment for us in between building snow people, snow caves, snow forts, sledding, X-country skiing, and snowball batteling the Heimers and the Coziahs. And, if you will pardon the pun, Grahm's sticks "beats" his friends Wii. Loves&Hugs&Bellyrubs, T&me
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