Bonding with the Family

In my little family, things work really well since my husband's a big kid, and my son is a little kid. Apparently, this makes me the adult. (Commence laughing here...)

But, considering that my husband is a big kid, he's not all that interested in playing with the baby toys the "kids" nowadays are into. So we don't have a whole lot of them anymore. As my son is growing, he really wants to be like Mama and Dada, which includes playing with our toys and watching our cartoons. Yes, I draw the line at South Park. (Jeremy ordered the movie on DVD, and Ethan picked it up and wanted to watch it. This is where the adult came out in me, and I had to put my foot down.) I mentioned yesterday how the family is all a big fan of the Simpsons, and how our most recent family outing was to go see the movie. Fun times!!

What Ethan's gotten more interested in since Christmas is the Nintendo. Most specifically, my DS. (Which was my Christmas present, I might add...) He LOVES playing the Wario Touched game..it just cracks him up. And Monkey Ball, though that one he'll more often than not hand off to me and tell me to play while he watches. Since we moved into the new place, he's also become enamored by the GameCube. We haven't quite gotten to the point where he'll play games (again, more often than not, he's watching me play Mario Party), but we're getting to that point.

Why do I let my child spend all this time with the DS? Well, first off, Ethan has in the past had a slight delay in his gross motor/fine motor skills. Which is why it amazes me that he can actually play Touched, as you really need to master some specific movements and actions with the touch screen. And you need to do it quickly! Aside from that, I don't remember telling him more than once or twice what buttons do what...he's figured that out for himself pretty darn fast. And he's also gotten really good at figuring other things out as well. At my nephew's birthday party, Ethan started playing around with one of the poles holding up a tent, quickly figuring out exactly which button to push to collapse the tent. (Happily, he was not strong enough to actually push it... But his Pepere was very impressed!)

So yes, there are good reasons to let your child play video games...and to play video games with them. You know what would be even better...having a Wii to play video games with your son. :)

This post is brought to you in conjunction with Parent Bloggers Network & EA’s Wii-Boogie, a family gaming experience. Shake it. Sing it. Create it.