day 1 of tv after nap times

Today was the first day I banned all television watching until after nap time, which means 3pm at the earliest. A few predicted (p) things happened and a few unexpected (u).

In the morning the kids kept asking me to watch television (p). Joel screamed (his new thing since he witnessed Katherine's episode of steroid psychosis earlier this week, fun times) about not getting to watch "Boo's Due's" AKA Blues Clues (p). I almost gave in a few times (p). I kept looking at the clock counting down minutes to nap time (u - HEY! I didn't say unexpected couldn't have been predicted). Katie asked me several times if she could wake up Joel (p). The evening was more chaotic (u) - hoping this is a result of it being an unusual day for us, not tv time moving. Less tv was watched (u). More fighting in the morning (p). Free pedicure for mommy (u)!

I enlarged it so you can more fully appreciate the artwork. :-) Joel did his, Katie did hers and Joel did mine. It was fun to remind Katie that she used to paint my toenails too. "When I was two?" "Yes, when you were two."

My husband is a nerd. He claims I only say this because I haven’t seen the people he attends school with in the digital media department. I say, there are gradients of nerd and his friends’ greater nerdiness does not make him a non-nerd. Hopefully this gives you context to understand why when he took the two older ones to school this week, they came home with 3 animated movies: Pinocchio, The Hobbit (or "Habit" if you're Katherine) and Lord of the Rings. So they are all trying to finish The Hobbit and watch Lord of the Rings when I make a run to the store for more pot stickers since Joel is willing to eat them and Aaron wanted Chinese food. At the store I run into a friend who reminds me that the Trunk-or-Treat (like a safe trick-or-treat in a parking lot) is happening in fifteen minutes. Being sick all week (in fact, I'm still sick but these antibiotics are whispering sweet lies in my ears), I had completely forgotten about it. I go back and forth but ultimately decide to take the kids for a little while.

I shut the door to my van so you couldn't see the mess. :-)

Getting home with five minutes to spare, this is what we end up with. A pink unicorn (I didn’t even bother to suggest a different outfit to go under the costume) and a male cheerleader. Okay, honestly, Joel doesn’t care. Last year I made him go as a “Handsome Vampire” (sparkly skin and all!) because he’s handsome and I figured this year he’d have an opinion. But really, he doesn’t care yet. We were discussing ideas out loud and I mentioned pom-poms and he was all thrilled about that. A few weeks ago, he wanted to be a lion. Whatever. We wrote the local high school’s letters on his cheeks, grabbed a backpack (since he's in high school, duh, like totally) and off we went! And I don’t think we coughed on anyone. 

After 35 minutes it was home to finish what ended up being dinner (thank you, honey) and the rest of the movie. So it was a little chaotic because the evening was less organized and probably because I don't love the noise of tv. So while my kids were less obnoxious, my quieter time of the day was less quiet. 

Still, most days I think the later tv viewing will help distract during the chuck of time usually devoted to dinner prep, some clean up and nursing. Since they needed baths tonight that cut further into tv time and they watched less than the allotted 1.5hrs. That was a plus.