The No TV Trial

Right after my surgery I had a ton of help from my husband and my family (my mom and Aunt Jo, in particular). Watching 4 kids is hard work - even for someone who knows the routine and does it every.single.day. To cut them all some slack, we watched way more than our normal allotment of television. We watched Shrek (something the kids have never seen) and then my mom went out and bought the Shrek 2 DVD (and is currently in the market for the third one :). By Tuesday, I had had enough. I decided to try a morning sans TV. And you know what? Not one child asked for it. NOT ONE! They played in the basement. They colored pictures. They played games. It was...awesome. I thought for sure that I would be required to provide entertainment. And I wasn't.

So I went for broke. Today is Friday and we have had TV-free mornings since Tuesday (even when Aunt Jo watched the young uns so I could grocery shop). I'm sure that tomorrow morning I'll let them watch Playhouse Disney again (there is a brand! new! Imagination Movers, after all) but it's really nice to know that they don't really miss it. This isn't to say that we haven't watched ANYTHING, but that eliminated a good portion of what they were seeing on a regular basis.

It helped that the oldest kids got to do water stuff while Little One was napping. And yes, Baby Girl is bawling in every picture. She couldn't understand that it wasn't always her turn. The boys were pretty patient, but considering she doesn't have the weight to actually do the "slide" part of the slip'n'slide, it was a looooong turn.