A good change

On Tuesday, I cleared out room on the floor of our bedroom closet. On Tuesday night, I had Tom move our television from the living room to our closet, facing the wall.

Good-bye TV!

I admit, having the kids home with me all day every day for the summer does feel oddly daunting after getting used to having Lily in school for 3 half-days a week. I did question myself on the logic of getting rid of our "babysitter". But Lily and Lukasz do watch very little television. During the school year I followed my mom, in that they could watch television while I made dinner. But it started getting to the point where one show wasn't enough, or two shows wasn't enough and there were tears and whining and it all got more frequent and I had enough.

Yesterday, the first full day without it, when Lily heard I was making dinner, she immediately asked "Can we watch Magic School Bus while you make dinner?" It was tempting to just put it on on the computer, but instead I reminded her that there was no television any more. And she said, "Oh, I forgot", turned around and was off and busy with something else. (Side note - The Magic School Bus may be a great program for teaching basic science concepts to kids, but it DOES NOT teach children how to be nice to each other. Two of the children are always bickering or just being outright rude or nasty.)

So far, there have been no further requests or demands for tv. There has been a big increase in craft time, though, which is just AWESOME. Lily continually asks if we can do a craft. Today, she decided to sew a pancake with strawberry jam out of felt. It's not finished yet, but she did her template on paper and started the stitching. While I was making dinner, she asked if I could show her how to draw a monster. I told her that it's easy to draw one, just make the shape of a body, but add more or less arms, legs, heads, eyes, etc., and she had a great time! She kept calling out what she was doing, like "EIGHT legs! THREE heads! SEVEN eyes!" And all through dinner we discussed the different combinations of body parts and colours that could make up a monster.

Today we also went for a walk in the pouring rain... Lily got a sliver on the banister as we were doing outside, and unfortunately the only way for me to get the sliver out of her finger (it was pretty deep) was to put something for her to watch on the computer. Dang. I put on an episode of Peep and the Big Wide World, and thankfully they didn't fuss when the 10 minute show was over. And I managed to get the sliver out in under 10 minutes. Whew.

After dinner we went to the library and I found some drawing books for kids which I'm really looking forward to getting into with them tomorrow, especially since rain is on the horizon for the next few days. And us with leaky boots. Oh well.

I'm super excited to create a nice nook with this "new" corner. We have no room to put the tv stand, and we still have an abundance of puzzles and games, so until I find somewhere ELSE for all of those, the tv stand is going to become a bench. I already have plans to make a nice thick cushion to velcro on top, with some throw cushions to make it a nice cozy corner. I'm designing a little something for one of the walls, and am toying with ideas for the other wall... a little shelf with special things... another bit of hanging art? We will see!

Tonight before bed, Lily asked me if we could do a craft tomorrow and I said "Sure!". Perhaps she is dreaming right now of what we are going to create tomorrow. She ALWAYS remembers what she asks me before she falls asleep, so I have no doubt that she will pop out of bed tomorrow with a craft idea in mind!