Wii Party Gave Me Cool-Mom Status For a Day

By Amy

On any given day we’ve got all ages of children – girls and boys—elementary and middle-school aged at our house afterschool. The school bus drops off right in front of our house and rather than disperse into the ‘hood, the kids often congregate here. Truth be told, we’ve had a couple sideways glances and complaints from neighbors when the gang starts hanging from the trees, wielding nerf guns, and spilling into the street with soccer balls. Personally, I’m just glad to know WHERE my kids are and am willing to play the role of denmother, snack provider, and neighborhood negotiator to accomplish that.

But now that daylight is getting shorter it’s going to be an even bigger challenge to tame this wild bunch and find indoor activities that appeal to all ages. Which is why I was more than happy to take up the opportunity to host a Wii party. Our three kids are already obsessed with Nintendo and are the proud owners of a DS Lite, 3D DS, and their second Wii system. So when I asked them if they wanted to try a new Wii Play Motion game, invite friends over, and eat ICECREAM, lets just say the response was a resounding YES.

To get started, we made up fliers with pictures of the Play Motion Spooky Search ghosts on them and handed them out to our neighbors. Then we got two giant boxes shipped from Nintendo full of cute sundae bowls and scoops, jars of toppings, a Cold Stone Creamery gift card, and of course, the Play Motion Game and Wii Plus remotes.

I was a little wary of mixing up the kindergarteners with the tweens, so I tried to have the older kids arrive later to give the younger ones a fair shot at the remotes first. But you know what they say about the best laid plans…when the bus pulled up the whole bunch of them enthusiastically went straight for our family room and took up the new controllers.

And, somewhat to my surprise…they played WONDERFULLY together. My usually shy eight year old (and resident Wii champion) proudly demonstrated all of the new game’s features and led the group in taking turns with the remotes. Even my 5 year old picked it up easily and loved it. It wasn’t long before all the kids were playing together, laughing, and challenging each other. Let me tell you, there is something highly gratifying about watching a 5 year old girl beat out a 14 year old boy in a video game challenge. Maybe it’s an affinity for the underdog or the underlying feminist in me, but it was awesome!

Although we had a big crowd (15 kids and 4 adults), everyone got a chance to play, enjoyed watching the others play, and was especially happy to make the rounds on the Cold Stone Creamery sundae bar. (FYI, the clear flavor winner was Cold Stone’s Cotton Candy with Gummy Bears.)

With 12 Wii Play Motion games to choose from, everyone had a favorite. The younger crowd seems to likeWind Runner, Veggie Guardin’ and Cone Zone the best. Everyone liked Spooky Search and the older crowd favored Trigger Twist. Although its one of the simpler games, Pose Mii was my favorite. Maybe it was the sugar effect from the fixins' on the Sundae Bar, but for some reason watching the little Mii characters roll into ridiculous poses never failed to give me the giggles.

All in all, the party was a great success.  My tween rolls his eyes when I dance to the radio, groans when I brush the hair out of his eyes, and considers all of my favorite teen 80s movies to be “lame.” Although I’ve got a long way to go before I’ll ever be considered a cool mom, I certainly got VERY close with this party!

Disclosures: Wii Play Motion is rated E10+. It contains mild cartoon violence (some shooting games and critter-whacking) but nothing bloody. We already own a Wii system, but Nintendo generously provided us with the Wii Play Motion game, Wii Plus controllers and sundae bar supplies for this party. Nintendo did not ask me to write this blog and the opinions expressed within are entirely my own.

Photo Source: Our party as posted on www.Flickr.com