And a virtual partridge in a pear-tree

I decided to take the weekend off.  What are you all doing reading blogs anyway?  You should be out shepherding your wild children about and trying to avoid meltdowns.  (At least that’s what I’ve been doing.)

Our weekends are always fairly frantic, and this was no exception.  We clocked up:

• 2 breakfasts out
• 2 lunches out (assuming a plate of donuts constitutes lunch? Of course it does)
• 1 Christmas fair (in the baking heat.  So Not Right.)
• 1 evening party (all in attendance)
• 1 evening pub quiz (which we aced)
• 1 airport pick-up
• 4 visiting relatives
• 1 car-vomit
• 3 cockroaches feasting on warm fermenting vomit
• 1 suspected concussion (milked for all it was worth)
• 4 movies (this is what happens when you forbid tv during the week. They glue themselves to the screen at 7am on Saturday.)
• 2 lie ins (excellent)
• 1 beach-club morning
• 1 pizza stop
• 1 room trashed by an Elf
• 1 room cleared up by same Elf, and
• 0 wild animals, scalp-dwelling insects, or other unwelcome critters (aside from the vomit-eating cockroaches). 

Tomorrow I have to have a word with Santa about getting the presents sorted (let’s hope he’s more organised than I am), arrange a parents’ social evening, do a fair chunk of work, and research Minecraft.   Is Minecraft even suitable for 6 year olds?  I assume not, but the Boy, exposed to it for about 5 milliseconds last night, will now NOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT.  It seems to be the crack cocaine of computer games. Our conversation – dragged out over 24 hours – went as  follows:

“Can I have it? Can I?  You’re just going to say No.  You say No to EVERYTHING.”

“Um...”

“You see?  I KNEW IT.”

“Can we talk about it later?” 

“Why? You’ll just say No later!” [fair point]

“Um...” [searching, futilely, for something tangible to pin my latent distrust on] “I need to check the age limit on it...”

“It’s FINE.  Teddy was playing it and he’s FIVE and I’m SIX”

“Yes, but Teddy has an older brother and sister so... it’s different for him...” [I think that this is where I started to lose ground]

“HOW? HOW?”

“Um... Let me talk to Dad, ok?” 

“He’ll just say No too.”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow, I promise. It’s late now and you’re going to bed when we get home.”

“What? WHAT? WHY??”

Tomorrow has been and gone, and we are no closer to resolution, but I suspect he will get his way.  My beef is this.  Computer games suck kids in until all they want to do is play them, and all you hear is whinge whinge moan when they have to do something else, like go to sleep, or eat dinner, or – God forbid – go splash about in their luxury pool and take advantage of their tropical lifestyle.  The Boy is particularly sensitive to screen stuff – it seems to rewire his brain, making him tetchy and agitated and, to be honest, pretty unmanageable.  I DO NOT NEED COMPUTER GAMES IN MY – or his - LIFE.

However.  I can’t ban computer games.  They’re a fact of kiddie life now, and it’s not fair on my kids to be the ones that are left out.  I’ve strung it out as long as I can and I need to start bending at some point.  I’ve heard good things about Minecraft – it fosters imagination, teamwork, finding solutions, blah blah blah. 

But.  It’s still a computer game, and he’s still 6.

Bah humbug.  I’m going to bed.  (Just as soon as I’ve strung Little Jackie Brown from some fixture or other). 

If anyone has any wisdom to shed on my Minecraft dilemma, let me know.  (Particularly if your 6 year old started to play it and became calm, deferential and subservient.  I’d love to hear about that.)