June 9, 2011

Today my To-Do list is short. In about 45 minutes I will have to go pick up my children from school. It is getting closer to the end of the school year for them and they are ready. I'm not sure I am. I mean, yes, I won't have to get up as early any more to make lunches and breakfast. But then they will be home all day, asking "What's for lunch? What's for dinner? What kind of snack can I have?" Or they will be inside the pantry all day eating. The other part of the day they will want to be on the gaming system or the computer to play. And they will wear me down. By the end of the second week of school being out they will have worn me down and out.

There is something about your kids being around you 24 hours a day. When they are just babies, you want them around all the time, but when they get to be teenagers and pre-teenagers, as much as they need to be supervised and kept an eye on, you don't want them around 24 hours a day. You need a break. Either there is to much talking or to much sulliness. Take your pick. And they want to be entertained. All the time. And all I want them to do is to go outside and commune with nature. There is nothing like digging in the sand and dirt and weeds to feel alive. Maybe I'll buy them shovels and rakes and tell them that is their entertainment for the summer.

The Big Experiment

Today we are embarking on a new experiment, at least for our family. I read in the paper that it is proven that children who do not play computer or video games get better grades in school. So for the next month my son will not have access to any computer or video games and I will see how he does in school. Because almost every day he comes home from school saying that he has no homework.

He states that he won’t last a week without computer or video games. I beg to differ; I think that after a week he will have found something else to do. Something like read or study, or he will talk non-stop to us. Oh, never mind that one, he already talks non-stop to us, doesn’t matter what the subject, he just keeps talking.

So, I will let you know how this turns out, it should be interesting.