Overnights, Flowers, Gems, and Fighting Games

We had a sleepover at Chez GamersBabes last night. Three girls - our own two (10yo Leanna and 8yo Abby), and the neighbor (9yo "Kay", who has informed me she'd prefer "Kiki" since I don't want to use her real name on my blog). Plus 3yo Lizzy of course, but she was not part of the sleepover, being "only little" and she slept on the couch. She usually falls asleep for the night on the couch in any case, so last night I simply did not move her into her bed after she conked out.

Kiki brought over her video game (after clearing it with me because it's "rated T and none of us are Teens"). It's rated as such for cartoony violence and because one has to choose the color of female characters' panties (so when they do flips and high kicks it doesn't move into rated M territory, I guess) which counts as "Suggestive Themes". All three girls are totally scandalized by this, but the panties default to white, and that just won't do, except in Kiki's character named "Pearl". They decided to design their characters after their respective birthstones, plus a couple others... so we have Pearl for Kiki, Turquoise (or Blue Topaz) for Abby, and Peridoe (sic) for Leanna, all dressed in the appropriate colors. There's also a Sapphire (maybe for me, maybe for Leanna's mom, maybe for Lizzy). This also led to a Wiki Walk and a Google Image Search to discover each person's birthstone(s) and Official Flower (Rose for Kiki, Gladiolus for Leanna, Aster for me and Lizzy, and Narcissus for Abby).

I first noticed inappropriate attitude in Abby (well before they were playing the game, so I'm confident the game had nothing to do with it... and that's a soapbox for another post in any case). Then I noticed it in Leanna - nothing major in either of them - just pouting and whining about things like being required to get dressed and comb their hair (I'm such a mean (step)mom!) and when even Kiki - usually the most level-headed and responsible of the three - was getting all cranky about taking turns in the game, I decided - and informed them - that the next time we have a sleepover, they're going to have to go to bed earlier or get up later or both. This brought a chorus of protest - as expected - but as now all three of them are actively cleaning the kids' room without more protest, clearly it did no lasting harm. But I did have to ruin Abby's surprise (her dad coming to pick her up for lunch) because she was weeping at the unfairness of me making Kiki leave at 11AM.

The theme song from this game will be in my head for ages though; when they left to clean up the room, they left it on. Not that I really mind. I like video games as much as they do. Or more. I used to be pretty good at Mortal Kombat... I wonder if I can kick that bad guy's butt.