Vintage Rerun Sunday: No TV Week, Day 2

Originally posted 9/3/08

Holy crap, my kids talk a lot. They have each gone over their word quota for the day, which usually is about 10 million words. I never realized how much I rely on taped cable TV shows from Mom to decompress. Joel is asking about watching Darkwing Duck quite a bit. And they are bugging me nonstop while I try to type, which TV would certainly cure. But I am determined. And brave, according to Tresa! And out of my mind!

The book "Dumbing Us Down" said something about the average kid taking in 55 hours of screen time (TV, video games, Internet) per WEEK. We probably do half that, which still seems like a lot of brain rot.

Today the kids played an actual board game with my mom while Aron and I went to the doctor with the baby. It was cool to act like we only had one kid instead of cramming our family of 6 into a 3' by 3' exam room like we usually do. I'd missed Eva's 6-month visit, and now she's closer to 9 months, so I enjoy confounding the nurse and doc when they try to plot weight and height and such on a graph based on age.

Mom brought over 2 new videotapes. My beloved Madmen and Project Runway will have to wait until Saturday night ... or maybe 12:01 a.m. Saturday morning!

Other fun stuff done in lieu of TV: read about different religions to Joel, read him Harry Potter without him falling asleep, Aron and the kids slept in the tent, the kids microwaved and re-froze ice, went to 2 different swimming pools, played at Daddy's work.

Please send all calm and patient thoughts my way. Thank ya. Reminder: I am doing this drug-free and am out of sweet and sour.

April 2012 ... now we try to just watch TV after 7 p.m. at night, but with the sun going down later, they mostly play outside then, too. We also usually try to catch Wild Kratts on PBS in the afternoon, and sometimes I let Eva watch Caillou on PBS also, just so I can get a straight 1/2 hour homeschooling the older kids. And that's why it's called the "TV-sitter" (like babysitter).