About three weeks ago Mom-the-Boss decreed that henceforth children in the household would be allowed to watch two 30-minute TV shows per day.  No more of having the TV on constantly and begging, "Can't I just watch the rest of this?  It's almost over."  I hate, HATE! the constant drone of the TV and knew I'd enjoy the peace and quiet.  However, the results of our TV turn-off surprised even me.

My kids have rediscovered play.  Yes, they played before, but now they keep themselves occupied with all sorts of creative and inventive play for hours at a time.  We have a large playset in our backyard that spends months doing nothing but collecting cobwebs.  Now the kids have turned it into a fort, a castle, a spy-on-the-neighbors headquarters , and more.  All of this play is reinforcing their friendship with each other.  Olivia has even discovered Hot Wheels, although her version of playing with them involves one car getting married to the other, and Andrew, bless his little heart, heartily goes along with it!  LOL  Olivia is also reading a lot more.  Last Friday she read a "whole American Girl book in just one day!", and boy, did that boost her confidence and self-esteem.

I am so glad we've cut waaay back on TV time at our house, and I have someone's blog to thank for it!  I just can't remember whose, but she wrote about getting rid of their TV entirely.  I don't care to do that, since dh and I are major '24' fans (Go Jack Bauer!), but keeping it off for nearly the entire day is definitely working for us.