We’ve dusted off the old Wii in the last few weeks, and have particularly enjoyed that Raeli is now old enough to play the Sports games such as Tennis, Boxing (she’s a TERROR at that, neither of us can beat her), Golf and Baseball. As part of our campaign to get more active (and if possible to add some activities that don’t involve braving the Tasmanian rain and/or sunshine) we decided to invest in a Wii Fit.

So it’s been a rather fun weekend. Raeli is quite enamoured of it, though she is very picky about which games she likes and which she doesn’t – quite understandably, she didn’t enjoy having her Mii being whacked in the face by old boots and panda heads during the soccer heading game, and she flat out refused to do the tightrope walk.

On the whole, it seems to be a good experiment – we’re all having fun, and there are plenty of things we can do together. Or, more importantly, that one parent can do with Raeli while the other is minding the baby or writing novels.

What I don’t like about it is the persistent focus on BMI and weight loss. BMI is a rubbish system for evaluating individual health/fitness etc. and was never meant to be used for anything other than statistical information gathering. Everyone knows it is rubbish, and yet far too many medical and fitness “experts” still use it – why? Because it’s easy to calculate. The fact that it is misleading and extremely dodgy doesn’t stop people or, you know, hugely popular fitness-themed games, from using it.

The Wii not only tells you your BMI, but insists that *everyone* should be aiming for a BMI of 22 as apparently people with that BMI are statistically more likely to get ill less often. I would really like to see the science on that one. Didn’t see any mention of the fact that people in the “overweight” (there’s a reason for the inverted commas) category have a better life expectancy than any of the others… I certainly object to the fact that even falling within the “normal” range of the BMI isn’t good enough for this system – it wants you to aim for one number out of a pretty broad range. Screw that!

I was sorry to see that the only goals that the fitness programme lets you set for yourself are weight loss ones. This assumes that *everyone* needs to and/or wants to lose weight, and that losing weight is the only possible reason for exercising! Problematic in so many ways… Apparently a woman in the UK sued the Wii for informing her 12 year old daughter that she was “overweight”. I presume that’s the reason that the instruction booklet now informs us that the BMI is only intended to gauge adult weights, and we shouldn’t pay any attention to it when talking about children.

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One of the nice things about my work-free (ha) month is the taking of weekends. Now, I’ve always been pretty bad about weekends. Between my various years of studenting, writing, etc. I have come to view weekends as that time when you get things done. Once I became a Mum, it was ‘the time when the other parent is here, so you can get things done.’ It means I’ve ended up with a screwed up kind of sensibility where all time is potential work time…

Last year, I got into a great routine where I discovered that 20,000 words a month is my optimum novel writing pace, and that it allows me weekends. Actual time when I can not achieve things, without guilt! As opposed to failing to do all the things I thought I could do in that “free time” and starting the week out feeling behind and stressed.

Freelancers! Factoring in time off is kind of important!

Of course when things have to be done at a more frenetic pace, like my editing early this year, weekends go out the window… which is fine, as long as it doesn’t last. I am actually learning from my errors!

So this weekend – well, yesterday there was a lot of lying around complaining that I didn’t get a sleep in (another weekend tradition – complaining, that is. Before I had children I used to get sleep ins) and in the afternoon the whole family packed up in the car and went off to a lovely little French cafe I’d never heard of to celebrate M’s birthday. I had made her a handbag which I have entirely failed to photograph (will try to nab her to get a snap this week – it’s so pretty!) and a group of us sat around eating tiny french cakes, drinking highly chocolatey hot chocolates, and passing the baby around on various laps. Raeli got to practice ‘being a lady.’

As a sidenote, I am trying to deal with my hangups about gender stereotypes that whack me between the eyes everytime I caution her to act ‘like a lady.’ Because, you know, it has whole different connotations to when you caution a boy to mind his manners, and I don’t want her to think she has to be some prissy little damsel in white gloves (which, given her druthers, she might actually turn into, heaven help us all). I settled this time for telling her that she didn’t have to be ladylike all the time, but it was a good thing to do in cafes. Possibly I need to work on that one.

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I’ve been feeling a bit blog-blocked in recent days. I suspect it’s because I’m not actively writing. My most energetic blogging happens when I am also writing up a storm – we all remember the twice a day Nano blogging, don’t we? – with my brain firing on all cylinders. This month is about prioritising other things, and I am a little concerned that my brain is going pulpy at the lack of horrific deadlines looming.

That would be bad, right?

I teeter between wondering what to do with myself (not the housework, obviously) and being overcommitted in new and exciting ways. Today I’m attempting Pilates for the first time, as the universe seems determined to tell me to do so (well, the universe and  godiyeva mostly, though C and Justine Larbalestier have also had a hand in it, important for writers to look after themselves *before* their body locks up and their typing fingers stop working). I’ve bought exercise clothes that don’t suck. I have my new horribly expensive shoes. It’s all a bit worrying.

I’ve avoided soccer with Raeli for a few days thanks to the incredible downpour of rain from Sunday onwards, but couldn’t think up any excuses yesterday, and it was brilliant. What a workout! She devises her own warm up and cool down exercises, and adores actual playing, though is still pretty firm that she prefers to win, thank you, no matter what I say about how winning means more if it’s a) a genuine win and b) you also know how it feels to lose. Luckily I’m not too much of a threat to her yet in the winning department, because of my high degree of suckage, and also she cheats like a fiend.

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