Mario Kart and the many lessons learned

We have a rule in our house that Noah can only play video games on Saturday. (In addition, he has to do six chores before he plays, and wow, is he motivated!) He has a tendency to get "obsessed", so we try to monitor as best we can. It's one of those things that we are trying to have a good balance of moderation. I don't have a problem with clean video games, I only have a problem when they are played for hours.

Noah would beg me to play with him, but if I won, he was super upset. He just doesn't get enough game time to improve as fast as he wants. So, this particular Saturday, he won first place and was thrilled.

"I can't wait to tell Daddy!" he exclaimed, but then quickly looked downtrodden. "But he won't believe me," he added.

"Yes, he will," I said.

"No, he won't," Noah argued.

I tried to convince Noah that I would vouch for him, but he was convinced Daddy would not believe him, since he had lied to Daddy recently. Brad had several talks with him about not being able to believe Noah because of the lies.

Which was a great teaching opportunity for me. So we talked about lying and the consequences and then we worked out a solution that Noah was happy with. We took a picture as proof.

I think it was a great moment for him, in several ways, but I think it really hit home that you have to tell the truth if you want people to believe you.

Then last Saturday, Noah had us cracking up. He chose a lighter car, and different characters and was winning every race. He would yell up the stairs "I won! I can't believe it! I don't know how I got so good!"

He was in awe of his awesomeness. It was hilarious! He just kept repeating over and over in amazement "I don't know how I got so good!"

I tried to explain that different carts handle differently, and that this was obviously the cart he should always play, but I don't think he got it. We will see what happens next Saturday . . .