Wii are addicted

Wii are visiting my family in Las Vegas this week. Since my parents transitioned into retirement, they have worked out a living arrangement with my sister and her family (husband and two kids). It's a big house, so no one feels cramped in any way. But there is no privacy. Ever. None.

My parents, notorious savers in every way, have made some surprising little indulgent purchases since retirement. Probably the most surprising is my dad's new Nintendo Wii, which all the kids have been pretty good about sharing. I've tried to limit Louis' general exposure to violence, but Wii boxing in the last 24 hours has given him some outlet for his aggression, and I guess it has been pretty low-key and harmless. At least so far. And he's using up a lot of his excess energy, which he'd use running around a park if I felt safe going to any local parks. But I digress.

One of the highlights of our trips to see my parents is going through my mom's fabric stash. In Vietnam, she apprenticed with a tailor and sewed a lot for my sister and me when we were young. She passed on some high-quality handmade pants to me and collected amazing fabrics for her stash from the 70's till now. Going through her stash is like going through a time warp. She was very protective of her fabric yesterday, knowing I was likely to request much more now that I sew a bunch, and she denied me access to a couple of nice cotton flat folds, one with a yellow print and one with white print on coral. I talked my way into the navy floral print. I still have a few days, so maybe I can find the right pattern and persuade her to let go. If she hasn't used the fabric in 30 years, she'd probably rather see it made into something that gets used, right?