I've mentioned about a trillion time before how much I love the blog antiquemommy.com. I still haven't taken the time to figure out how to create a hypertext link (yes, I'm sure it's easy, and yes, I'm just too lazy right now to do it), so I've copied and pasted a post directly here. She's not against the Wii, by the way, or anything else technological. She is opposed to not taking every opportunity to make memories with your children. Read on:

They Won’t Remember The Wii
January 15, 2009

"I once asked my mom what she remembered most from my childhood.

She said she remembered always feeling badly that we were so poor. She said she always wished that she were able to do more for us kids, that she always longed to give us more.

Her answer surprised me because that’s not what I remember at all.

I remember that she rode bikes with us all over the neighborhood, that she let me pull all the stuff out of her cabinets and play in them, that she taught me how to play jacks and how to make a necklace out of clover, that in the winter she and dad would load up the car with all the kids they could find in the neighborhood and take us ice skating, that she was the den mother for my brother’s cub scout troop, that she worked in the school office, that she once made an abusive nun stand down, that she never sent me back to my own bed when I was scared. That’s what I remember.

If there is a lesson here, it is this: Skip the Wii (whatever that is) and the expensive electronics and hang out with your kid.

Because that’s what they will remember."

What do you remember about your growing up years?

From the ages of about 4-10, I lived in a small town named Culbertson, Nebraska. A lot of my childhood is connected to this place, and my memories are vivid.
I remember the first cake I made--Trisha, don't laugh--it was a lemon bundt cake and my mom took a picture of me proudly holding it. I remember sitting between my parents on their bed and practicing my speech for a 4-H competition, a speech my Dad had typed for me on index cards. I remember a lot of sunny, summer days, played among the biggest weeping willow trees you've ever seen. I remember good food--and my mom making homemade doughnuts for us after school. I remember LONG bus rides to and from school--and treks from the school bus to our house across a big Nebraska wheat field on good weather days. I remember wading in the creek that was near our property, and in the winter, sledding down a big hill adjacent to our front door. I remember piano lessons "in town," rides on the "Joy Bus," and lots of potluck dinners at church. My parents were my Bible class teachers all those years, and I couldn't begin to tell you all the good memories of that. Mostly I remember being happy.

Jana