After the children went to bed...

...Jon and I stayed up way too late PLAYING WEBKINZ. For the past TWO nights! It's been a very pathetic weekend! :)

Just before we went to Florida we succumbed to peer pressure and allowed Ray to purchase a Webkin Rooster. Basically, this is a stuffed animal that includes a code for access to a website. (His cousins have loved playing with Webkins and have told him about the cool website that comes with them.) Although it's a neat concept and probably very fun for older kids, this purchase was a mistake for us I think.

Ray is now obsessed with playing Webkinz on the computer. The problems are that the site requires more reading than he is capable of doing independently... AND the games are too hard for him (and me)... AND you have to earn points to buy everything for your Webkin (including food, furniture, toys, exercise equipment, etc)... AND Ray is limited to 30 minutes computer time per day.

I was thinking that this is actually a good exercise for Ray to learn to save points and choose carefully what he "buys" for his rooster. Then, the rooster got sick. It turns out he needed exercise (for which we needed to purchase equipment AND a back yard) and certain food and God only knows what else. So, I decided that Jon and I needed to try to get more points for this crazy rooster so he wouldn't die.

We tried to play a few games, but it was taking us forever to get the points. Eventually, at around 10:30 last night, we called my sister, who has sheepishly admitted to liking playing these games. We begged her to teach us the tricks. She was amazing! We had wasted so much time with the hardest games. We found out how to send our rooster to the spa. That's right, the spa. For only 285 points, the stupid bird got healthy and happy in a matter of seconds. I was thrilled and disgusted at the same time. We learned how to win prizes and play easy games and take quizzes (designed for children) to earn points. AND my sister, who seems to have endless Webkinz points, sent us a gift of lots and lots of points. It was crazy how happy we were!

So we went to bed feeling very relieved that the rooster would "live" to see another day and excited to show Ray and Adam all the points we now had. This morning Jon and the boys had a blast "tricking out" the Rooster's home and playing games.

I'm laughing about all this AND scratching my head at the same time. Is this what our marriage has come to? We have about 2 seconds to spend together without children and this is what we do? No wonder we haven't had any more children! Is this need to care for a cyber-rooster an indication that we need another being to nurture? Or that that's all we know how to do now? We need to relax I think! Don't call us tonight! ;)