For Christmas, we gave M a Nintendo DS hand held video game thingy.  In general, I think video games are kind of evil, but the feminist in me made me agree to buy one.  Over the summer, I kept finding M literally hanging over the shoulder of various boys watching them play their DS games.  The image made me flash forward to her future high school years and  I don’t want her standing by while boys get to have all the fun.

So M got her DS and a pokemon game to go with it. (She LOVES pokemon.)  Once school starts, she will get 7 chips a week that she can trade in for TV or DS time.  Each chip equals a half hour.

Over Christmas break, we have been a little  more relaxed.  The other day, M and I made a 4 hour car trip and I let her play the entire time.  She also played for at least 3 hours on Christmas day.  Yesterday, I cut her down to only an hour, then I made her put it away.

Last night, around 10:30, Mr. A saw M sprint from her room to the bathroom.  He noticed she did not look like a girl who had been sleeping.  She looked surprised to see him and said “Uh, when I have to pee, it wakes me up!”

He came up stairs, told me what happened and said “I think M has been playing DS in her room. I don’t think she has been to sleep at all yet.”

I was immediately outraged.   Ok, that isn’t exactly true.  I wasn’t outraged, I was highly amused.  M rarely breaks rules, and the idea of her staying up THREE HOURS past her bed time to play illicit video games was almost unimaginable.  I thought surely Mr. A must have been mistaken.

Mr. A and I tiptoed to her bedroom and burst through the door.  Sure enough, the DS was on her bed.  In the glow of the blue DS light, M was trying to pretend she was sleeping (she had heard us despite our tiptoeing.)

“You are SO BUSTED!” I said, “Have you been awake this whole time?”

“Noooooo?” said M.

“Are you lying?” I asked, “Did you just wake up to go to the bathroom or have you been playing DS the whole time.”

“I was kind of yawning a few times,” said M, “I was almost sleeping.”

“Well, you are busted now.” I told her.

She looked at me, then at Mr. A.   “What does that even mean?” she asked.

“You are in big trouble!” I said, “You broke the DS rules.  Maybe I will take your DS away for a week!  Maybe we will have to cancel your playdate with Annie tomorrow!”

M did not look impressed with my threatened punishments.  It probably did not help that Mr. A and I were doubled-over giggling because the whole situation was so amusing.

“Oh, Mom, you can’t cancel my playdate!  Think about poor Annie!  She will be so confused!” said M.

“We will talk about your punishment tomorrow.” I said, “Give me your DS.  I am going to turn this off without saving your game.  You know playing after bedtime is against the rules.”

This morning, Mr. A and I discussed an appropriate punishment:  No DS today and tonight M has to go to bed very early (6:30) because she stayed up so late last night.  We will also keep the DS ourselves rather than allowing someone with such poor impulse control to have access to it whenever she thinks we aren’t looking. If we catch her playing without permission again, I will delete her entire saved pokemon game (a crisis of major proportions!!).

M looked somewhat contrite when we told her the news.

Then Mr. A gave her a lecture about responsibility and trust.  I think he said something like “Honesty and Responsibility are the KEY to TRUST. If you don’t have the KEY, we can’t TRUST you and then you won’t have privileges.”  She had to listen to that lecture until her eyes glazed over.  Then she even more chastised and very bored.

(Actually, I just asked Mr. A to tell me what they said.  He spent at least five minutes trying to explain it to me and MY eyes are glazing over too.)

So there it is.  The story of the first time M tried to pull one over on us and how Mr. A and I learned that adolescence is closer than we thought.