The Gameboy Story

In theory school starts today but we woke up to a two hour delay compliments of icy pavement. Will this vacation never end?

Acutally, it's been a very productive two weeks even with the kids home. I cleaned every inch of my bedroom this weekend, except the closets which I'll tackle later today. I vacuumed, dusted, donated, recycled and tossed that clutter away. I just keep walking in there to look at my handiwork.

I did make Dim Sum for New Year's Eve. What a labor intensive but thoroughly yummy experience that was. I brought some to share with family on New Year's Day and the unanimous opinion was that it was very good. (Even my very unvegan brother agreed!) Definitely something to do for special occassions only, with lots of help if at all possible.

Friday both girls got their learners permits so now we've added the joy of driving to my parenting activities. All you parents with little ones, watch them when they learn to ride a bike. I'm discovering their technique and learning curve for driving a car largely mimics the learning to ride a bike one. The difference is, in this case, I wish we were all wearing helmets!

Before diving into the new year with complete gusto, I want to revisit Christmas one last time. Here's a little lesson on what makes kids happy at the holidays as taught to me by my sons. They were given cash by several family members which left them gleeful but with the buy something you'd like dilemma. Walk into a big toy store and their brains just turn to jelly. They don't know what they want, they just know they want something.

The solution to this dilemma presented itself quite by accident. Jim had discovered a local comic book/video game store that bought and sold used video games and systems. We had bought the boys a comic book collection and video game each there for Christmas. They were thrilled and asked to visit this wonderous store with him sometime. Enter the Christmas cash, now they had a reason for their store visit.

They opted to get another gameboy game each and to trade in their gameboy advances for refurbished gameboy advance sp's. (The difference for all you no video game players like me, is that the sp's have better graphics and can be played in the dark. This makes them much more useful on a long car ride.) They each got a $10 credit for their old gameboys. They walked out of the store like proud little entrepreneurs new gameboys in hand. I don't think any present has ever thrilled them as much as this transaction did.