Screen time

The sun did not shine.

It was too wet to play.

So we sat in the house

All that cold, cold, wet day.

... Too wet to go out

And too cold to play ball.

So we sat in the house.

We did nothing at all. 

~ The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss

At least that was the case with Gus. (Except for the part about sitting. But doesn't he kind of remind you of the illustration of the kids staring out the window at the rain in The Cat in the Hat?)

My tech-savvy kids found plenty of ways to keep busy. Thanks to Xbox, it was not too cold to play ball. Despite Sunday's blast of winter weather, not to mention his own involvement in a spring hockey league, AJ has transitioned to summer time mode. NHL hockey has been replaced by MLB 2K12 as the video game of choice. That means whines about goals that should have counted are now replaced with complaints about blown calls by the computer ump.

"What?!? That was a strike! That should have been a strike! Really, Mom."

Miss Sydney, meanwhile, has an amazing ability to learn and remember which buttons to click on to play her favorite online games. Thankfully, she's grown tired of barbie.com (I could do quite nicely without ever again hearing "Barbie" say in her sing-song voice, "I'm all about the games, girls.") and now requests nickjr.com. The games are more educational and she's less likely to drain our printer's ink cartridges by inadvertently printing out a full-color picture of Barbie's latest fashions.

Watching my kids' fascination with these game options, not to mention their uncanny understanding of how they work, makes me understand why our pediatrician uses the warning of limiting "screen time" (not just "TV time"). If I let them, the kids would sit staring all day. AJ has tried in the past to argue that Xbox counts as exercise because he's playing sports games. To which I respond he needs to exercise more than just his thumbs.

But before I get too critical, I think back to how excited my siblings and I were the time we got to "babysit" my uncle's Nintendo game while he headed south for the winter. The games and graphics were so basic 25-30 years ago, compared to today, but the concepts of interactivity, controlling the game's direction and competing against an unknown computer opponent are all the same.

And it sure beats the mess that would otherwise be created by Thing 1 and Thing 2.