gone techno

Our entire family, at this very minute, is on a computer. I'm here with my old loyal iBook. :) Curt's doing something on his work computer. And the boys are on his other computer playing Rescue Heroes. OK, so Camden really mans the controls, but Benjamin's so purely entertained by it, you'd think he was in charge. What in the world did we do as kids w/o computers?

I remember playing with Kim and Karen, our across-the-street neighbors. We played nearly every single day, rain or shine. We must have driven our moms mad with our constant bickering one minute and best-buddy routines the next. There was no limit to what our imaginations would conjure. Most of our time was spent [i]creating[/i] the scene for whatever we were going to play. We'd spend hours and sometimes days redoing our garages into fairs, school rooms, hospitals, clubs, and even stores. My favorite memory was playing Cohen's Department Store and giving Karen a bill. "What's this?" She asked. I told her it was the "Booty Bill" (Because there was a picture of a boot on it. Shame on you, you dirty mind!) We laughed and laughed and laughed. Well, you clearly had to be there. :)

My kids don't play like this. Their play is fundamentally different. Of course, they're younger than we were when we played all our fun sit-coms, for lack of a better word. Camden and Benjamin have a boisterous sort of play. Maybe because they're boys, I don't know. They love their sandbox, trucks, and the swingset. The thrive on the outdoors and our backyard. But most of all, they just love to yell, run, climb, and make themselves heard. Our ears get tired at times. And we're often just too pooped to play along with them. But Curt and I both believe with all our hearts that these wild, loud, blurs of boys make us young again. We'd miss the racket if they were stuck on the computer all the time.

That said, I'm all for a little noise break. Let's play a computer game, guys!