Dear, Dear Husband

Dear DH;

I know that returning to school as a full-time mature student is tough. Our brains don't pick up new information or retain it as well as they did when we were young. I know that you have to study more, and harder to get good grades and learn all the necessary knowledge for your diploma. I understand all of this.
And that is why when you disappear off to the bedroom for hours at a time at night to "study" or "do your homework" I look the other way. I carry on with the daily household chores on my own, look after our children on my own, and do what I can to make sure you have the time you need to complete your schoolwork. Even though I worked all day from 7 in the morning until 5 in the evening looking after other people's children and I'm bone tired and my patience has just about run out, I still carry on, because I am trying to be a supportive wife.
HOWEVER;
When you start your school day at 11 a.m. and you have completed all your schoolwork the night before, I'm sorry but that DOES NOT give you the right to sit on your ass and play Wii games until you need to leave.
Look around you. Do you not see that the carpet is covered in lint and god knows what else, and that the goddamn vacuum is sitting right there in front of your damn face because I got it out a few days ago but didn't get to it? Do you not see the mildew growing in the toilet because I'm sorry, I'm too tired at 8:30 at night to start cleaning bathrooms? Do you not see the load of dishes in the sink waiting to be cleaned from the meal that I cooked last night and once again had to listen to my kids complain about it and whine, "How much more do I have to eat?" and didn't receive even a word of thanks or praise for making it? Did you not see me gathering the sheets from the beds and putting them in the laundry, meaning, duh, the beds now need to be made up with fresh sheets? Do you not realize that the groceries are running out and that your extra time could be spent running to the grocery store and picking up a few things so I don't have to drag two whiny kids out later at the end of my long day (and probably in the rain at this point)? Are you completely blind, or just stupid?
I find it hard to believe that you are that stupid, seeing as how you are maintaining A's in college, which leads me to to the conclusion that you may be blind, but you must be pretty talented to be playing Wii without vision.
So maybe you just don't care. Which begs the question, do you not care about the state of the house, or do you not care about me? Because truly, if you sat and thought about all I do, and cared enough to try to make life just a little bit easier for me, you would at least do something.
Maybe you'll care enough when you're out of clean clothes, fresh food and you can't tell if it's the floor that's making your socks dirty, or your socks that are making the floor dirty. Perhaps you'll care if the Wii is accidentally "broken" during a cleaning mishap, or the tv was "knocked over" rendering it useless.
Your spiteful ever-loving vengeful caring about to quit doting wife,
Me

Who Says Video Games Stifle Creativity?

Right now I am sitting here on the couch with a headache that is threatening to become a migraine if I try to do too much. At least that's my excuse. And I can hear the boys upstairs playing "Batman".
This weekend, I rented the Lego Batman video game for the Wii, knowing that we didn't have much planned for this long weekend (we have Family Day, a holiday, today here in Canada). This morning I woke up to the boys showing me how they had used their Lego to build their own Batman characters (very well done, I might add) and now they are role-playing Batman, even though aside from one half-hour cartoon movie we own, they have never seen the movies.
It makes me happy that they are playing this way, as sometimes I wonder about my decision to let video games into our lives. I do find that sometimes a prohibition on the DS is needed for R for a week or so, to reboot his system in a way. He tends to turn to it more and more for entertainment, and when I tell him no more, he listens but lays around listlessly moping and complaining of boredom. An enforced week off or so usually does the trick to get him back to playing more with his brother, and not being so addicted.

Wii

This weekend, we purchased a Nintendo Wii system. I finally gave in. I always wanted to be one of those parents that didn't let their kids have a gaming system until they were teens, due to the rise in childhood obesity. But I gave up. And in all fairness, the Wii has more physically active games, which is part of why I bought it. I have also secretly wanted one for myself anyway for quite some time now.

I plan on getting the Wii fit at some point. It scares me when I do any kind of physical activity just how out of shape I am. When I first started taking the kids to school in the mornings as well as the afternoons, I was exhausted. And it's only a ten minute walk. Now that is very sad. Of course, I console myself by saying that not everyone has to mind 9 children at the same time, so part of the exhaustion is stress.

But when I run, I almost always hurt my ankle (it twists somehow). And the feeling of the fat all over my body flopping up and down is disgusting. Then there is the part that scares me the most - my heart. Sometimes it seems to speed up, and skip beats. It's hard to describe. I had it checked out about a year ago, by having an ECG and also wearing a Holter Moniter for 48 hours. Nothing was found, and the doctor said that lots of people have it, and it generally isn't dangerous.

But still, it scares me, especially since during times when I'm straining myself (like pulling a very full wagon of three toddlers up a steep hill) it becomes worse.

So, time to get into shape. Several hundreds of dollars later, sigh...