I have been really pleased with the limited amount of time the kids have spent staring at a screen the past few months. It was hard at first just because watching some tv (either a DVD or something on Amazon Prime via the Roku) one to two times a day had become habit. It surely is very easy to take care of the kids when they're just watching tv. That doesn't include Oliver yet, thankfully. The only time he'll turn his head toward a screen is if a song is playing, and even then his attention span is less than one minute. Once I broke them of the habit, we haven't really missed it, especially since we've been doing things like playing at the playground and swimming most days. The swimming pool closed yesterday. During the time we usually would have been at the pool I was coloring with Nadia and then all of us were playing outside (riding bikes and such).
This morning a guy from the cable company came and hooked us back up to cable. If we didn't live in such a rural area, we'd be content just watching the local channels, but we get ZERO channels without paying for either cable or satellite tv. We haven't watched live tv for the past 9 months, but now we have access to it once again because Paul and I both love to watch our football games. Depending on how our teams do will determine how many months we have cable. Last year neither of our teams made it to the playoffs (boo hoo) so we turned off our cable the end of December. If at least one of our teams does better this year, then we'll likely still have cable in January. Tuesday evening is one of the times I have decided I will let the kids watch tv because Paul doesn't come home until after their bedtime. After we got home from their last t-ball class, the kids were thrilled to be able to watch a little Disney Jr. before heading to bed as they hadn't seen shows like Sofia or Doc McStuffins in quite awhile.
This afternoon the FedEx guy delivered our iPad. I was surprised because Apple had said we'd receive it on Friday. It came three days early! The kids haven't used it yet, but I have just installed 3 apps for them so far - Endless Alphabet, Reading Raven, and Blob Chorus. I will let Ian and Nadia give it a whirl tomorrow (but then I will not allow them to watch any tv tomorrow). I am excited about delving into the world of apps. I'm using the "lite" (free) version of Motivated Moms until they have the 2014 app available for purchase. Now that we have cable tv again (for a few months anyhow) and have our first tablet (we don't have smartphones yet), it's going to be more of a challenge to limit their screen time (meaning Nadia and Ian at this point), but I am determined to keep it in check although I am sure during the winter months when we aren't outside much I'll let them use it a little more than I will during the months when we can be outside more. The neat thing about educational apps is that the kids will just view them as fun, whereas they will actually be learning! I am NOT planning to install things like Angry Birds on the iPad. If any of you have any recommendations for apps for chore charts for the kids, educational apps, or anything that you really like for yourself, please let me know! I am definitely a novice when it comes to apps!
I have been really pleased with the limited amount of time the kids have spent staring at a screen the past few months. It was hard at first just because watching some tv (either a DVD or something on Amazon Prime via the Roku) one to two times a day had become habit. It surely is very easy to take care of the kids when they're just watching tv. That doesn't include Oliver yet, thankfully. The only time he'll turn his head toward a screen is if a song is playing, and even then his attention span is less than one minute. Once I broke them of the habit, we haven't really missed it, especially since we've been doing things like playing at the playground and swimming most days. The swimming pool closed yesterday. During the time we usually would have been at the pool I was coloring with Nadia and then all of us were playing outside (riding bikes and such).
This morning a guy from the cable company came and hooked us back up to cable. If we didn't live in such a rural area, we'd be content just watching the local channels, but we get ZERO channels without paying for either cable or satellite tv. We haven't watched live tv for the past 9 months, but now we have access to it once again because Paul and I both love to watch our football games. Depending on how our teams do will determine how many months we have cable. Last year neither of our teams made it to the playoffs (boo hoo) so we turned off our cable the end of December. If at least one of our teams does better this year, then we'll likely still have cable in January. Tuesday evening is one of the times I have decided I will let the kids watch tv because Paul doesn't come home until after their bedtime. After we got home from their last t-ball class, the kids were thrilled to be able to watch a little Disney Jr. before heading to bed as they hadn't seen shows like Sofia or Doc McStuffins in quite awhile.
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