I'm a little depressed this week. It's Spring Break here in Evanston, and I think we're all in full-on, stir-crazy mode. And now I can't remember if I blogged about our social experiment of the weekend, but here goes.

Earlier in the winter, when we all thought it would only be a few months long, I'd suggested to DH that we buy a Wii for Chanukah. I thought it looked way cool for a videogame system. You actually get up off your ass to play it! How sweet is that? Maybe with an active game, the kids could burn off extra energy without killing each other!

Well, DH wasn't quite there. It's expensive, it didn't seem all that necessary yet, etc. We put it off and I just assumed that some day down the road, maybe within a few years, we'd probably get something like it.

Then, I played it. Only for a few minutes, at Alberta's house (her grandson got it for Christmas), but it was really fun! I played tennis (badly -- just like in real life), and the boys played everything else. I told DH how awesome it was, and forgot about it again.

So last week, we had the parent-teacher conferences at school. We met with Jacob's teacher, who started out by simply saying, "Jacob is doing just great." How could we not love her? We had a long conversation with her about mainly social/behavioral issues, and then she showed us some of his work. It amazes me that in 2nd grade, the kids are learning about literary styles, but they are. And she had made us each a copy of Jake's persuasive narrative.

I don't have it with me, but it basically says:

"Dear Mom and Dad,
"I know what would make Danny's hands stronger. We should get a Wii! We could all play and get exercise. Strong hearts are needed. And I can bet you 100,000,000,000 500 dollar bills that we would not fight even 1 time. I know you hate that noise.
"Love, Jacob" 

When we were able to stop our tears of laughter, DH jokingly (sort of) accused the teacher of instructing Jacob in new ways of manipulation, but a few minutes later, as we sat outside the kindergarten classroom to wait for Danny's teacher, DH said "Maybe we should get a Wii." DH had taken Danny to his occupational therapy session that day, and the OT had said that Danny's fine motor skills were definitely improving, but his gross motor skills were still behind. And he'd seen Danny playing a videogame at my parents' house where, when making the character kick and spin, Danny stood up and made the same movements.

We tossed the idea around a bit but I didn't take him seriously. I did suggest that he go play it somewhere, to see what it's like.

That was a Thursday. I came home from work on Friday, and was charmed to discover the Brady Bunch had taken over my household. The boys were all playing quietly in the living room with nanny Simona. She took them to the Exploratorium that day and they all behaved beautifully. "If they don't fight, they get a Wii," she said to me.

My reaction was not positive. In my head, I was screaming "what the FUCK are you promising my kids?" But the boys assured me that Daddy came up with that plan. The rules were that Jacob had to make it to Monday without yelling at or fighting with the other two boys; if they all cooperated so that the goal was achieved, we were getting a Wii.

"Never gonna happen," I thought. I'm sure DH felt the same way. Jake had slipped once or twice that day, but DH gave him a few freebies. Before bed that night, I told the boys that I was "flabbergasted" they'd had such a pleasant, quiet evening. It was actually nice to be home! The kids were so well-behaved that I asked DH if I could take them to Chuck E. Rodent (nice moniker, Orange) the following day. They'd blow it that afternoon, I figured, but I'd buy another several hours of cooperating.

Imagine my shock when we awakened to peaceful, helpful, kind and fairly quiet boys on Saturday morning. They even got along well in the car! I tolerated four whole hours of Chuck E. Cheese (shudder), and then told the boys we had to do a few errands. (Apparently, I'm a glutton for punishment.)

First stop: Famous Footwear. I usually take the boys to Payless (and get my cheap-ass shoes there, too), but the older I get, the less comfortable I am in plastic pieces of shit. Here and there, I find a great pair of shoes there that last a long time, but generally they're kind of crappy. Between that and guilt from my mom (you buy their shoes where?), I figured it was time to buy some "brands."

Imagine: a whole HOUR in a shoe store with two boys amped up on orange soda and four hours of games. They were well-behaved enough for me to find them each sneakers and cleats, and for me to find these shoes, about which I'm increasingly ecstatic (hence the title of my post). I got five pairs of shoes for about $145, which is a scary number to me, but for five pair? Not bad.

Anyway, long, long post short(er), the boys actually made it to Monday without any serious lapses of mean-brother behavior. And now we have to buy a Wii. I don't know who's more excited about it, to tell the truth. Of course, they've slipped up since then, but just the reminder of what DH calls "Wii-havior" seems to help make things ease up a bit.

Easy for me to say, since I'm at work and DH is home alone with them... hopefully, nobody's burned the building down.