Frolic: Summer 2012

Our summer is coming to a close. By the end of the month, the boys are on their way to a new schoolyear.

Summer 2012 was all about loads of rain and not much sun. Nevertheless, Sydneysiders still remain grateful. Not having too much of the sun makes you think about the advantages of being away from it.

My eldest boy is due for a specialist check up, following through from four years ago. He has a freckle/mole in the white of his right eye, and since then, it has spread and grown bigger. Even for us, not as fair as the locals and relatively darker-skinned, sun-safe should always be part of the Australian lifestyle.

My youngest, out on a week-long football camp, comes home with bloodshot eyes from the heat and it doesn't disappear easily. Although this week has been the warmest, it's still in the mid 20 temps. And we're already close to February.

One good thing to come out of the main preoccupation this summer, marathon Wii/XBox gaming, is that my eldest in particular has become more talkative (when he wants to). This whole summer, we've been nagging, whingeing and yelling at each other because of the boys' gaming obsession. We've inherited equipment and games or received them as presents. And from bitter experience, we've long decreed this activity as something only for school holidays.

It's a particularly touchy topic. When group of parent friends all come together, we straggle in like the war wounded and talk about how terrible this all is, how we can stop them from endless playing, etc. We regale each other with our best strategies, activities and camps that can interrupt and jolt them out of gaming.

Yet listening to this otherwise shy, quiet, hesitant boy when he plays, this (almost) 14-year old increasingly offers almost non stop commentary while he plays (Bourne series of Xbox games, Assassins' Creed series, war/strategy/shooting games). It's an upside, and something to be grateful about. I realize there is a time to simply chill and perhaps sharpen reflexes and strategy skills through gaming. The strategy skills are also a boon to their fencing, which they're doing very well.

We're slowly making our peace with this form of games. We do draw a line at the little one playing MA15+ games. He gets to dabble in M-rated ones like Transformers, racing games and those superhero games. It's just that the 'laziness' is contagious. I am even listless, unproductive, distracted, as I try to write simple copywriting jobs.

Yet, as my second son said a few nights ago at bedtime, 'I'm looking forward to going back to school.' Thank God for summer holidays and for a couple of months change in a year's routine.