7 Days With No TV: Day 7

Dear Mr. Television,

I’m sorry, but I think it’s time for us to break up.  It’s not you, it’s me.  Actually, no, it really is you.  Your a sneaky you-know-what, and I’m now wise to your devious ways.

You claim to help me out by watching my kids for me so I can get more done around the house.  But since I took a break from you a week ago, I’ve found it a million times easier to get things done.  I know, it defies all logic, but it is true.  Hours will go by before I hear a peep from my kids, they’re so involved in their playtime.  Not so with you, with you they continue to come to me asking for drinks, or food, or manage to fit in a wrestling match that I need to break up in between shows.  I have to stop what I’m doing every 5 minutes to attend to some “want” or to referee.

You claim to provide mindless entertainment for a period of time, giving us all a much needed break.  But once we spend time with you, we don’t feel like doing much else. 

You fool us into thinking we’re spending time as a family just by being in the same room.

You suck away at our time without us even realizing it.

No, I’m sorry, there’s nothing you can do.  A call was already put in yesterday, there’s no going back now.

You’ve seen more then enough of my kids faces, now it’s my turn.  I’m going to be the one entertaining them from now on.

Sincerely,

CamCam’s Mommy

 

7 Days With No TV: Day 6

My whole parenting life, I’ve been in search of the perfect toy.  The perfect toy would hold my kids’ interest for more then 10 minutes.  It’s something they’d want to come back to and play with again and again.  My house is filled with toys, but my kids said they were bored of them all.

Until this week.

This week, all our toys are suddenly fun again.

“Leader of the Fab-Five” was interested in his Legos again.  His room looks like a Star Wars Lego store opened up shop in there.

I think our Lincoln Logs have been played with more this week then they had been in the past 7 years that we’ve owned them.

 

We invented a really cool game with the LeapFrog ABC toy that used to drive me nuts.  We tied a large paperclip to the end of a string that was attached to a wooden spoon.  I turned all the ABC’s upside down so that the magnetic side was showing, and then “Mr. Trouble” and CamCam took turns “fishing” for ABC’s.  They couldn’t get enough of this game!

 

And CamCam has spent HOURS with his train table.  Honestly though, this isn’t unusual, he LOVES trains.  What’s funny is we bought this train set for our oldest son because he loved to play with the setups that stores would have on display.  Wouldn’t you know though that he never played with the one at our house?  Why are kids like that?  But we kept it all this time, and recently The Dada built a table and the train set was resurrected for CamCam. 

    

But guess what’s getting used again during the day?  Something that hasn’t been used during the day in AGES:

All this activity really tires him out!

7 Days With No TV: Day 5

You wanna know what I’ve discovered the past few days?  My kids are FUN!  Now that they come at activities with eager attitudes, they are a blast to hang out with.  Not once have I heard “I’m bored.”  Not once have I heard “Ugh, I’m tired, can’t we just go home?”  No matter what activity I bring up, they’re eager and willing to try.

Today we walked on the bike trail.  CamCam did NOT want to turn around, he wanted to walk to the end.  It’s close to 5 miles long!  I convinced him that we should turn around because there was a trip to the playground waiting on this end.  I let my “Little Hurricane” out of the stroller for the mile walk back and man, can that baby run!  Those little legs move with lightening fast speed, but never in the direction I want them to go.

Once we were done with all our outdoor activities, we came back home and played ABC Bingo.  “Mr. Trouble” and CamCam LOVE Bingo.  It’s a new game, they just got it this week, and I think I’ve played it close to 500 times already.

I am so blown away by the positive change in my kids and our family dynamic that, today, for the first time, I am seriously considering making this a permanent change.  I mean, honestly, how could I go back?

7 Days With No TV: Day 4

Seriously?  Is the weather conspiring against me this week?  Oh well, I guess if you’re going to see if you can go without tv, you might as well do it in the worst possible circumstances. 

Summer vacation?  check

Summer sports have ended leaving no activities scheduled?  check

Raining and pouring ALL DAY LONG?  check

Surprisingly enough, this didn’t ruin our day at all.  The kids just invented one game after another.  I’m simply amazed at how quickly my kids imagination was turned back on once television was out of the picture. 

My favorite game they invented today was when “Leader of the Fab-Five” brought his big blanket out of his room and laid it out on our hardwood floor.  He filled it with pillows, and got all the little boys to climb onto it.  Then he sailed them around the room on their “ship”.  He told them they couldn’t get off of the blanket as the “floor” was hot lava.  I never knew it was so easy to get my little boys to stay in one place. 

I wonder if when I’m out in public I could convince them that the entire store is hot lava and if they’re not right next to me the hot lava will get them?

7 Days With No TV: Day 3

In trying to get my older 2 kids out of their summer sleep-in mode and into the early rising required for school, 2 weeks ago I implemented a new routine.  Everyday, they were required to have themselves up and ready to go by 9AM.  If they weren’t up, dressed, and awake (in other words, not a walking zombie), by 9AM, then they would not be allowed to watch any tv that day, nor do any computer or video games. 

It worked beautifully. 

But a week and a half ago I put the wii away, only to come out on occasion for family game time.  PSP’s are being saved for long car trips.  Computer time has been drastically reduced.  Three days ago, I took away the tv.  Right now it is after 11AM and “Leader of the Fab-Five” is still sleeping. 

I just realized I took away all his incentive for waking up by 9AM. 

“Well, if I can’t do any of those things anyways, I might as well sleep in.”  Smart boy.

Still, I think it’s a small price to pay for all the benefits we’re getting from going tv free.

7 Days With No TV: Day 2

This morning I woke up and it was raining.  Uh oh.  I really thought this no tv thing would be incredibly difficult today.  But it wasn’t.  It’s amazing how quickly kids adapt and fall into a new routine.  They played together all morning.

CamCam and “Mr. Trouble” invented this game where they pretended they were puppies.  They’d take turn being the owners and telling the puppy what to do.  “Leader of the Fab-Five” saw a great opportunity with this and so he started playing with them.  Of course, he was the owner.  Everyone was happy.  They’re really good at pretending.  I wasn’t too amused when they came over to me and pretended to poop on my lawn though.  But I bet The Dada would find that hilarious, so I let it go. 

In the early afternoon I needed to shower and get ready for an eye dr appointment so I put in a Mickey cartoon for the 3 little boys and let the older two play a little on the computer.  Everyone had one hour and they stuck to it well. 

The only slip-up in the day was while I was at my appointment.  “Leader of the Fab-Five” snuck back onto the computer while I was gone.  He’s pretty smart and knew to leave the computer on after I let him use it earlier in the day so that way the password wouldn’t need to be entered.  But The Dada and I are pretty smart too, so now our computer shuts itself down when left idle for 15 minutes. 

So was day 2 a success?

Let’s see, in the afternoon my oldest, my 12 almost 13 year old boy, my preteen going on teenager asked ME if I’d like to play a board game with him.  I think the last time he asked me if I’d like to play a board game with him Lucky Ducks was the game in question.

So, yeah, I’d say today was a HUGE success.

 

7 Days With No TV: Day 1

Well, I did it.  I finally got fed up enough and pulled the plug.  The Dada had warned the kids that I’d do it.  “Mom’s only going to last so long,” he said.  “If you kids don’t start controlling yourselves with this TV, eventually she’ll get fed up and take it away.” 

And it happened.

I felt like I was always fighting with my kids over the TV.  Getting mad at them for how much it was on.  I felt like every time it wasn’t on, they were lurking in the living room, waiting for when I’d let them turn it on again. 

Now, this is hard to admit, but I’m going to be honest now about our TV viewing habits.

------------------------------

We have one television in our home.  It’s in the main room of the house, an open room that has our living area, kitchen, and eating area all in one.  In the morning, The Dada and I would be up first.  One of us would turn on the TV and have the morning news on in the background while we ate breakfast and hung out a bit before he went to work.  Eventually the three little boys would start waking up, and the TV would switch over to cartoons.  Playhouse Disney or Nick Jr, specifically.  It’s “like preschool on tv,” you know.  

The little boys would watch tv for a bit, then they’d want to eat, they’d play a bit, all with the tv on in the background.  I’d start cleaning the kitchen up, picking up and vacuuming the main room, eventually my cleaning taking me into other parts of the house.  The older two would wake up.  My oldest would eventually switch the tv over to older kids cartoons.  At 10AM, “The Baby” would go in for his nap, and I’d take advantage of that time to get as much done as possible. 

Around 11:30, CamCam and “Mr. Trouble” would tell me they were hungry for lunch.  I’d now realize that the tv was STILL on, my older 2 were laying on the couch in their pj’s, hadn’t eaten or anything.  I’d get mad and tell them that they needed to learn when enough was enough and when it was time to turn off the television.  You would think that after having this same conversation over and over eventually I would learn that they didn’t know when enough was enough and when it was time to turn off the television.

Afternoons pretty much consisted of someone turning on the tv every time I was distracted, me turning it off, someone else turning it on.  In the evenings, it would go on soon after dinner, sometime between 7 and 8, and it generally didn’t get turned off until The Dada and I went to bed. 

------------------------------

So on Sunday, I pulled the plug.  I had my usual morning meltdown, and then The Dada asked why we didn’t just turn it off.  He went down to the basement and unhooked our Satellite at the source.  It didn't’ take long for the kids to realize that the tv was “broken”.  I told them we had one week before school started, and we were going “TV Free”.  Actually, it’s going to be satellite free, I’m not opposed to the occasional renting of a movie or little kids cartoon. 

The kids hung out on the couches, like usual.  But it wasn’t the usual wresting, fighting, laying around and generally driving me nuts until I turn it back on.  They complained for about 10 minutes about the tv being broken.  Then “Leader of the FabFive” said “Come on Little Miss, let’s go play in my room.” 

And "Mr. Trouble” said, “Come on CamCam, let’s go play our choo-choo trains.” 

And just like that, they were off.  Playing together.  Inventing games.  Using the imaginations I thought they had lost. 

I’d say Day 1 of No TV was a roaring success.