Wii Fit

In an effort to encourage our 6 year old to practice writing over the summer break, we resorted back to a trick that worked with potty training. We made a chart and every time he completed a writing assignment to our satisfaction (using his teacher's guidelines) he was allowed to add an X to his chart. When each box was marked he was to receive a reward. The reward was a Wii game, the gold standard among 6 and 7 year old boys.

My fear was that we were going to have to spend $50 on a game that he liked for a week and then got tired of. As luck would have it, the day before he placed the final X on his chart he was at a friends house who had just bought Wii Fit. He came home raving about it and decided that this was the game he wanted as his reward. Knowing that my beautiful wife was also interested in Wii Fit, it was a win-win situation. The down side was that it was $90 rather than the $50 we were hoping to spend, but hey, we got the kid to practice writing all summer so what's a few extra bucks.

The hard part was going to be just finding a copy of the game in stock. At least that's what we thought was going to be the hard part. Again, luck was on our side and the very first store I went to had 2 copies in stock. Jackpot.

So we spent yesterday afternoon playing Wii Fit. I let my kid play for about an hour and then I took a turn while he took a break. I started by playing the Hula Hoop game. Nice abs work out. Then I did the running game. I nailed it on my first try and the game told me I was a "fantastic runner." Well...thank you very much. About a half hour later, my six year old discovered that all you had to do was shake the remote at the proper cadence and the Wii would think you were running. So much for being a fantastic runner. On the bright side, I worked up one heck of a sweat just by playing for about thirty minutes.

Before the day was through, everyone had some Wii Fit time and the verdict was unanimous. This game is a keeper. Today, my abs are quite sore from the Hula Hoop. And in retrospect, it was probably a bad idea to play Wii Fit a couple of hours before I had to run a 14 miler. Live and learn.

So my kid is still in front of the Wii for two hours a day but at least he's actively participating instead of sitting on the couch. Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii.