Times Change

When I was a kid my grandparents watched us (and our cousins) while our parents worked. My Grandpa walked us to and from school which was just down the street. When we got home we got to watch maybe and hour at the most of tv... but mostly we played. We played house, store, school... or made up games. We had talent competitions, we acted out pretend movies, and we did news shows. We even choreographed routines and practiced them. Our options were limitless. When we weren't doing that my Grandma who used to sew would let us into her sewing room where she gave us needles and thread and let us make barbie clothes. She had a box of scraps and we would spend hours there cutting our designs, sewing them (sometimes with help from her or her machine), and then trying them on our dolls. Man was that a blast! My Grandpa always tried to keep us busy too. He would play his guitar for us and sing, we read the bible or learned our prayers, or he'd have us writing or drawing on paper. And whenever he could we'd be outside.

Man was childhood simple and easy.

Now we have so much technology!
My kids will say they're bored if they're not on the computer, watching tv, or playing Nintendo DS, Xbox, or whatever else they have. They don't even hardly play with toys anymore!

The majority of this is my fault. I never forced them to turn off their things and just play. Alayna doesn't have a problem with it but Diego is still constantly telling me he's bored.

I've decided to make it a priority to not depend so much on these things. I have cut down their TV time. And now I am trying to do more things with them. We're hardly home during the day. We can be found at the park or even just outside playing. Diego is no longer allowed to play on anything electronic on Sundays. Sundays have always been our family day since it's Jr's day off. But now he's not allowed to turn on anything unless of course we decide to play Rockband as a family that day.

So I've been taking the kids new places. I've bought crayons, markers, stickers, paper, paints, in hopes of getting the kids to be more creative. And maybe learn a thing or two.

So our new thing is sidewalk chalk. And man do they love that stuff. Once the sun isn't so high I take them out and they draw for hours. Arielle even wants to get in there and get dirty.

I am glad they can see that there are other fun things to do besides internet, tv, and video games.