Techno Tots

Last week I made a commitment that I would significantly reduce the amount of television my children watch each day. Now I must admit, this is a commitment I have made many times in the past and within a few months, we have slowly crept back up to what I consider WAY too much TV.

I think it has gotten worse since we moved here. My excuses for this added TV time are as follows:
1) Claire has dropped her naps and the ONLY way I will EVER get anything done is if I let her watch a movie while Sarah naps.
2) It is stinkin' cold here and the only place that offers indoor entertainment in our town is the playground at McDonalds.
3) We now have a playroom that has it's own cable access. So now the girls can go into the playroom and shut the door while watching TV. This is a tricky one. When they are in there and the house is quiet, I switch into "get things done" mode and the time flies by at warp speed. Before I even think to check, they have often managed to watch at least 3 or 8 shows in a row.

Head hung in shame.

Don't think for a moment that I feel that any of the above excuses are actually excusable. I really don't. Thus the new commitment. This commitment started last Friday. Snicker, snicker. Does anyone really ever stick to new commitments that start on Friday? Well, I did. For one day at least. Friday was great! I think the girls got a total of 2 hours of TV over the entire day. I know that for some of you that is still too much, but for us that is a major accomplishment. We played and played until we couldn't play any longer. I was quite worn out, but the girls were happy as little larks. And I was feeling like Mommy of the year.

Then comes the weekend. I did my best to monitor how much TV they watched, but weekends around here are so relaxed. And it is hard for me to want to play with the girls around the clock when their Daddy is taking a (well deserved) break from work by watching TV in the living room. All I want to do is put on a movie for the girls and go join him. So the weekend was a big flop. Not to mention that the girls' answer to my "less TV" stance was to go in search of alternate forms of technology.

At one point, I found them sitting the hallway with my iphone and Michael's ipod.

Then a bit later, I found them in our office. Sarah now had the ipod and Claire had ditched the phone for the Mobigo. 

It was at this point that I admitted defeat and decided to start my commitment anew on Monday morning. 

And here we are on Monday morning. You know what killed my resolve today? Both girls woke up with fevers and Sarah has a wicked, gross cough. So now we are nursing everyone back to health in the hopes that we are all well for our Houston trip and my resolve for less TV will just have to wait for another day.