A Chat

Yesterday after church I was checking my facebook page and an old friend popped up to chat with me. As I was chatting, Jared came in and started whining about when we were going to have dinner. I told him I would make it in a few minutes. It soon became apparent that Jared was both hungry and cranky, as he kept bugging me to make him dinner NOW. I told him, "Jared, I will make you dinner as soon as I finish this. I'm talking with a friend." "How can you be talking, mom?" he retorted, "What is she going to do, pop out of the computer?" I typed to my friend that I probably needed to get off and make dinner as Jared was starting to get upset and was demanding his dinner. Jared read what I wrote and whined, "Don't write what I said!!! I don't want you to say it. Make what I said go away!" Hmmm, definitely dinner time.

As I finished up my chat, Jared said, "Mom, you spend way too much time playing on the computer." "I'm not playing on the computer, Jared," I responded, then I caught myself, realizing that was only true in the most literal sense. Jared continued, "Mom, I think you need to have a whole week with no computer." Getting off the computer, I said, "Jare, getting on the computer is what I do to have fun. I don't usually watch TV and I don't play Wii, so when I want to have fun, I talk to friends or play games with them on the computer. I don't do it all the time. But, do you think it would be fair if all I ever did was make dinner and clean the house and I never got to have fun? Would you like to go for a whole week without playing Wii?"

"Well mom," he said, "you don't let ME play on the computer when I want to... and it's already been a couple of days since I've played Wii." (Ah, the truth comes out-- he wants me to get off the computer so HE can play it....).

"Really? I thought you played Wii with daddy yesterday morning and again in the afternoon?" "Oh, yeah," he mumbled, "I forgot."