New Rule

After reading a few too many parenting books to try to figure out how to get Henry to stop hitting (he's getting better by the way), I decided that my kids watch entirely too much TV.  So I implemented a new rule: play outside for 1 hour, get 1/2 of TV on week days or 1 hour on weekends.   It was  a little painful at first.  The kids would just sit outside not knowing how to play outside, but now, a month later, they rarely watch TV.  Maybe once a week Rex will cash in his playtime but they get so distracted playing outside they don't have time to to watch TV any more.

And it's been really good.  Alice is no longer a vampire; she goes right to bed at night.  The house stays pretty clean.  Ok that was a lie.  But the kids do sleep better at night.  They fight less and play more.  There spirit in our home is better.  Not that the kids were watching bad shows but the lack of TV forces them to interact in more positive ways.  And I get to feel like a good mom because I can say, "We don't watch TV at our house" while looking down my nose at all the other moms.

I do miss it though.  I miss being able to plop the kids in front of the TV so I could shower or nap or mop the floor in peace.  Henry doesn't nap anymore even though he really needs to so our afternoons are no longer the quiet, peaceful, relaxing afternoons that I used to not kill my children and regain my zen for after school and dinner and bedtime.  Now it's just chaos all the time.  Especially Henry as he gets more and more tired through the afternoon.  Around 4, I usually can't handle the noise and mess and complaining anymore and send everybody outside, where they slowly make their way over to the Wheatley's and the trampoline.  Becky is such a good person.

Now I just need to figure out how to get Henry to nap again.  He is so much better behaved when he's not exhausted all the time.

Greg built the kids a deathtrap/fort/elevated platform to play on with I first decreed outside playtime.  They spend a lot of time on it.