Books With Bad Words In Them.

Maxim, our oldest, has a "good and bad filter" that is set to the highest level of modern society...which I think is a great quality to have.  He sees the world, and good and evil, in black and white...there are no grey areas.  Brecken on the other hand pushes the envelope.

Our world might be different than yours....you see at our house:
the "s-word" = Stupid
the "d-word" = Dummy
Hate is a word that must not be uttered
But ironically if you are playing anything, no matter what it is, we will blow you up with a laser, cut you in half with a sword or beat you up with a Chuck Norris-like death chop.  Kolby's American Girl doll has even been threatened with a toy gun...by Kolby.

So with that as a background for the principals of how our kids see the world, Maxim has been reading a lot of books that are not assigned to him, and did you know that if you read a book not assigned by your local Christian school teacher, it could have a bad word in it?

Maxim has been reading books like "Diary of A Wimpy Kid" and novels of the sort...and on Friday he picked out a new book called "The Strange Case of Origami Yoda".  On Sunday he got his new book and dropped into his bed to read away...Brecken and I were out in the living room going through his subtraction flash cards (only used his fingers for 8's and 9's, YEAH!) and all of the sudden Maxim came out yelling for Steph.

I assured him that whatever his problem that I could help him and he showed me his new book, and he said, "Dad, I am not sure I should be reading this sort of book."

"Why?" I asked, expecting the worst...I assumed that Steph kind of gave it the once over parental review before she bought it and that it wouldn't be something really bad....but you never know these days.

"Look, right there in the 2nd paragraph!"
"THE H-WORD!"

I took a look and sure enough, the h-word was right there.  Plain as day.  So I explained to him that I was proud that he was concerned about what he was reading, and told him the author of the book was trying to get a point across to the reader that the boy in the story really "HATED" what his parents were making him do.

Maxim thought that was a good enough answer and then went off to his room to read more...about 20 minutes later I heard him laughing out loud, and I asked what was so funny.  He brought out the book and showed me where the same boy was talking about how fat his teacher was, and that he looked like Jabba The Hutt.

So all those of you wondering...I guess, according to Maxim, it is OK to make fun of people's weight struggles, but not "hate" vegetables.

Under The Covers Gaming.

You know we make a big deal about kids being on electronics too much these days, and I agree that it needs to be limited...but each night when we tuck the boys in, and I slide my hand under their pillows checking for iPads, iPods or the occasional book and a flashlight, I think back to my childhood and remember playing countless hours of LED Football.

You could go forward and backwards and when you scored a touchdown you had to bury the thing under your pillow cause it went off with a bunch of whistles and beeps like a crazy R2-D2 unit.  Knowing what I know now as a parent, I assume my folks knew I was gaming in bed, but if they are in bed they are starting to fall asleep, right?

Fast forward to 2013...my kids are playing the same exact game, but on the iPad format, and they are still trying to hide it under their pillows at night.  This morning I "caught" Kolby gaming under the covers....she had come into our room around 6:00 am for a little snuggle time and fell back to sleep.

I took a shower and was getting dressed and heard this loud sound from under the covers of "plop, squish and water running" and then I heard it right away after, so between the TV noise and my non-total alertness, I thought she was puking in our bed!

I went to the bed ripped back the covers expecting to see my little princess all hunched over in a pile of vomit, that Steph would have to clean up....INSTEAD I busted her gaming under the covers.  She was a little sweaty and all smiles playing Where's My Water? on my iPhone...I was a proud father.

So if you are feeling nostalgic and want to download your favorite old Matel handheld game...just go to iTunes and type in LED Football, or Hockey or whatever...BUT one little piece of advice, if you do get the football game get this one...It is waaaay better than the original version (the one I had growing up).  You can pass, and go backwards...it was a much better game play design.  My cousins Brent and Jon had that one...I was always pretty jealous that they could pass the ball and I just had to run, forward...ALL THE TIME.

But then I got this beauty below for my birthday!  1980 was a good year!