no t.v week

Well, we made it. The end of our "no t.v. week" is here. Last Sunday we came home from a wonderful week at my parents house in Oklahoma for Thanksgiving. We all LOVE going to Oklahoma and spending time with my family, and Eli and Micah have really started to look forward to our trips there. Nana and Papa have fruit loops, Andy and Mark's old GI Joe's, cable, and did I say fruit loops? :) They love to wake up early and watch cartoons before breakfast, and know exactly what shows are on. With my brothers around too, the tv is just on a lot more than at our house, so they end up watching it at random other times throughout the day. Plus, getting to Nana and Papa's house is about an 8 hour car ride, and I have no qualms about letting them watch movies on our drive there. "Whatever we have to do" is sort of our motto for those trips. And by the way, how in the world did our parents survive before those things were invented?! Anyway, after a week of a whole lotta tube time, I decided to just turn it off. I had thought about doing this before, but honestly, tv helps me. It is the one thing I know I can count on to hold my boys attention for however long I need, and the thought of not having that to fall back on was a little uncomfortable. It is especially appreciated when I am making dinner. I actually enjoy cooking when I am not trying to get it done as fast as a I possibly can amidst a lot of screaming, wrestling, and crying. What is it about that dinner time hour anyway? My rule with tv has loosely been 30 minutes at a time and usually just once a day. So it's not like they are parked there all day long, but still they act differently when they watch it, and it gets in their little minds so they ask about watching it a lot. And that is just PBS because we don't have cable! It was just nice to have it off of the table, not even an option for them or for me. It's like we all needed to push our reset button and get back to a point where we are not depending on, thinking about, and addicted to that glowing box. Mission accomplished, at least for this week!