Any time there is declared a day without electronics, my children nearly collapse.

“Can I watch cartoons?” my son asks while I’m grinding eyelashes awake.
“No, we watched a lot yesterday.”
“Well can I play Wii?”
“No, let’s wait until tonight.”

That’s when legs start jumping and he thrusts his upper body onto my bed in a less than controlled outburst. Still, it’s nothing of the magnitude of his younger sister.

Hours later we’ve stopped mourning the loss. (It’s a loss for me too at first. I mean, I get serious Facebook scrolling done while Popeye is eating spinach.)

“You’re kicking my booty,” I tell him as he swoops in for another stack of victory.
“That’s because you prayed for snow. And beat me last time.”

I don’t see how this is relevant, but it makes me laugh. We begin a series of giggles that won’t stop escalating.

“Are you cheating?”
“No,” he says. “I’m just straightening my cards.”
Right. Of course. Silly me.

Sister comes in and then we are dealing in three reps instead of two.

“Nernie, nernie.” Whatever that means.

I put on Pandora and his glasses are a blur as he starts head-banging to guitars.
My daughter’s top lip roll’s under itself and she looks like a mouse. A mouse who realizes she must “pay up.” We learned a new game where face cards are owed like the royalty they resemble. Where competition can’t be avoided. And where fun started.

“Mom, is it dark yet?” I promised he could play Mario when the sun went down. “You said I could in an hour and that will be at 3:53 so…”
He laughs like we’re riding bumps. My literal, brainy boy.
“I didn’t mean an exact hour. Now scoot.”

Go find Legos and army men and imagination. Go find boyhood. And then we’ll play video games.