Some Days Are Perfect

 

I've been doing this job of Stay at Home mom for over 5 years now. It's such a rewarding job even though it does have it's challenges. Just today I went to our beautiful park with my 2 year old son. We enjoyed the warmth of the sun, the green grass, and the Japanese gardens. I packed his backpack with watercolors, brushes and his sketch book. Amongst the beautiful sounds of a creek and the shade of the trees, we painted and he explored the creek. It was perfection. The one thing I love about painting with children is watching their concentration. We don't talk a lot, but he shares with me how the color changes on the paper. I love watching him in his work.

Little man's backpack ready for our adventure

Painting in the park

 

Exploring the creek

It wouldn't be an Oregon childhood without Keens

Happiness is THIS moment

It wouldn't be a trip to the park without a little swing time

 

Then it was nap time for my littlest, and time to paint with my oldest

Screen Free Week recap

I am coming off my Screen Free week extravaganza. I learned a lot about how much technology is such a huge pull in our every day lives and how much it is needed to unplug, put down, and pay attention.

The first thing was the television for us. We have (had) a rather large flatscreen television that dominated our living room. This is also our children's play room. It's never turned on for them, but we started to notice that they were witnessing the significance of this television to us. My 5 year old enjoyed cleaning "daddy's tv" and they shared in our excitement when that little red envelope (ahem! netflix) would come in the mail. We noticed that even though they didn't watch television, it still had a huge impact on them. So, we decided to sell it. This wasn't the only reason, but being someone worthy of imitation was pretty huge. I also wanted to get rid of the television because I wanted to focus on reading more, getting more rest, and eliminating images from my own mind.

It's been two weeks now, and I couldn't be happier! I don't miss having it around. Our view is now of the mountains versus the wall of the tv. And I just simply like not having a tv.

The next order of business was the computer. I chose to not turn the computer on during the times they were awake. At first this was really hard for me. I always liked checking my email, blogs, etc before the kids woke and when my youngest went down for nap. I did, however, realize what a huge distraction it was becoming. Even if I wasn't on the computer myself, the slideshow that plays was a big distraction.

This I have continued to do past Screen Free week. Quite frankly, I have no reason to turn on the computer before my kids go to bed. It's nice not having things to tie you down, it's one luxury of being a stay at home mom. I need to reward myself with that and realize that there is nothing super important waiting for my on the internet. It. Can. Wait!

Lastly was my love/hate relationship with my Iphone. I wanted so desperately to stop texting for a week. I even sent out nice little notes to people about me not texting them back and not to text me. It was a HUGE fail. I just couldn't seem to do it and that was rather disappointing.  I did however, break my cycle of texting and driving! YEA!!! SERIOUSLY! how horrible! I had to actually put my phone in the trunk to stop doing it. But, Hey! It worked!

All in all, I was so happy with doing Screen Free week and I feel that my kids greatly benefited from it. My kids are already screen free and I want to be worthy of imitation, so here's hoping the trend continues.

Anyone else out there participate? Share your thoughts in the comments!