Thank you, Goblins!

My 5 year old son, Joshua loves LOVES anything related to computers. At first I took pride in this fact, dreaming of the day he becomes the next Bill Gates. He has been a natural computer whiz since he was 3, maybe even earlier.

He now installs things on his computer and knows how to find what he installed, and then start playing it... sometimes to the chagrin of his parents. He knows the words download, install, delete, mouse, cursor, dot com and Internet.

It really wasn't until he started waking up talking about certain games, or telling me about dreams that had specific computer game references in them that I realized he was probably on the computer too much.

It started out, simply enough, as a way to have him learn how to use the mouse, and to learn from Teacher Dora, his colors and ABCs in a way that I couldn't teach him. It morphed into hand held video games when he was hospitalized for a breathing problem, and daddy wanted him to feel better. It most definitely did the trick, and that video game came in handy for many doctor appointments, and one more hospital stay. Well worth the expense.

However, as many parents do, we found ourselves in this never ending pattern of letting him play the video game all the time. At first it was the computer he was addicted to, now it has become this tiny little magical device known as Nintendo DS lite. Most days I would let him play for more hours than he didn't play it. I felt guilty for sure, but when I took it away he freaked out and cried and screamed and lost his mind. I knew deep down that was a sure sign of addiction...one that we needed to break pronto, but I had my own issues to deal with as well as a business that won't run itself, and needed the very elusive down time that that video game gave me. I succumbed to the "computer as babysitter" method of parenting.

After a few months of this, I noticed my son was losing his personality and just wasn't fun to talk to any more. Every question to him followed with an answer that didn't match. I would ask him how his day was at school and he would say, "And then these big guys would come and I would get them!" Stunned, I nodded my head and said something like "That's nice Joshua, now mommy needs to go put herself in time out for being a horrible parent."

So, this is when I invented the Goblins. The Goblins are these evil creatures that live in the ground and take little kids' video games. When he wasn't looking my husband or I would hide the video game, and when Joshua would inevitably start crying about where his video game was, we told him the Goblins must have gotten it. At first this didn't go over very well. He cried and wanted it back and stomped around, but after this happening a few weeks in a row (magically the goblins return his video game to some random spot in the house on Saturdays or Sundays) he started to play along with it.

Now, when he gets his video game back on weekends, he says "Mommy. I am going to sleep with my video game so those Goblins can't take it away." And, as any wonderful mom would do, I say, "That sounds like a fantastic idea Joshua, you are very smart!" Of course in a few hours one of us finds the video game lying somewhere out of sight from Joshua, and Viola! it comes up missing again. Darn Goblins.

So Saturday came and daddy was out of town and it was crazy yucky outside, so I decided the Goblins should make their return. We were upstairs and I said, "Did you hear that? I think I might have heard the Goblins downstairs, Joshua." He ran to the top of the stairs and listened and said, "I heard them again, Mommy! The Goblins are here!" And, he ran downstairs and saw his video game on the kitchen counter and yelled, "THANK YOU GOBLINS!!!"

These Goblins are becoming as sacred as Santa around here, and I'm thankful for it.