wii love birthday presents!

the hub has always been VERY anti-video games in the house. for the most part, i've been right there with him on that thought. too many kids are hanging out inside the house, asses firmly planted on the couch, game controller super glue-d to their hands. although it's hard to just let 'em run amok outside nowadays, what with creepy dudes and kidnappers and shit, it's still sad that you rarely see kids playing outside anymore.

i spent most of my childhood outside, roller skating, running around, going to the park, what have you. i did my share of hanging out inside the house, too - reading, watching tv, making and eating snacks, and i played some video games on our atari 800. bwahahahaha! it wasn't even something cool like coleco vision. oh no, our video game system was also one of the early versions of a home computer. nerd! although we DID have fun games like pac man, donkey kong, and dig dug. heh.

but then there were all sorts of newer, more sophisticated systems out. and hundreds of games were available to go with them! by this time, though, i was more into going to the mall with friends and hanging out and other stuff like that. plus, the games were really violent and i just wanted to play nice, calm games like tetris. so i lost interest in video gaming altogether.

and then nintendo's wii system came out. i saw people of all ages playing with it at kiosks in the mall, or in the video game section at target. i thought it was pretty cool that it got you off the couch and more into the game, and although i wanted one, the hub stood firm: no video games in the house. as hard as the teen lobbied for it (while i sat back with my fingers crossed), he wasn't budging.

the teen and i were eyeing some of the games a couple of weeks ago and she said
"if the hub asks me what i want for my birthday, i'm so telling him i want a wii." and i said "yeah! that's what i want for mother's day! it'd be so much fun!" and sure enough, when he asked, that's what she said. he rolled his eyes and said "what else do you want?" and we figured that was that.

while walking around at disneyland this weekend (full recap of that to come), he confessed that he'd been reading up on it on the internet and hitting up every store he could think of in search of the elusive wii. i really do love how much he wants to make her (and me) happy, especially since she can be such a shit to him sometimes. anyway, after all of his research, he'd finally come to the conclusion that we'd been trying to explain to him for months - that the wii isn't your typical gaming system.

boys. you just gotta guide 'em in such a way that they finally come around to your way of thinking, but think they came up with it all on their own. [sigh]

unfortunately for him, that damn wii was sold out everywhere he went. and he wanted to give it to her at the party, so he didn't bother looking online. but with none available anywhere, he gave up. i was sad.

at the party, the ILs convinced her to come inside for just a moment to open a few presents. the teen is like me - HATES opening gifts in front of people. it's just way embarrassing, and far too much pressure to have all those eyes on you, waiting for your reaction to every present you open. bleh. but she gave in, snuck away from her friends, and joined us in the air-conditioned living room.

and when she pulled that box out of the giant gift bag, i don't know who was more excited, her or me. just like disneyland, the hub (with the ILs help) managed to make both of us happy with the same present! i tried to contain my excitement so that she didn't realize that it was as much of a surprise to me as it was to her, because the hub kept telling her it was from both of us. i'm not too sure how successful i was - i'm a horrible liar.

when she went back outside to her friends, i blurted out "hey, thanks for the heads-up to keep me from squealing and clapping when she opened that present."

the ILs and the hub laughed their asses off for a solid five minutes.