Our afternoons have been filled with fighting and screaming (the kids fight, watch TV, and get yelled at by me to turn off the TV). This afternoon however has been very pleasant. I got my house cleaned, the laundry done, and there has only been one minor battle between the children. Once they realized that the TV really was unplugged and wouldn't work, they gave up trying and have found other ways to entertain themselves....and have been much happier I might add.
What I have loved most about the TV being off today is the game that Owen and Ains played most of the afternoon. I'll call it FFM for lack of a better name(which I learned today stands for free field apparent motion FYI). Ains has 3 or 4 kids in her class that are hearing impaired. I learned last week when I went on a field trip with her class that the teacher wears an FFM device that looks just like a microphone and the kids that have cochlear implants hook something up to their ears (don't know the technical term for that piece...sorry) so then they can hear what the teacher is saying. Ains and Owen made FFM's today out of blocks and played a little game of school like I have never seen before.
The kids lego technology was nearly as impressive as the real thing...unfortunately they have long since been destroyed.
Ains always made sure that Owen spoke into his FFM so that she could hear him, and the two of them sat and read together and Ains gave Owen a little lesson on letters. Ains carried around her cochlear implant attached to her ear for a long time. I think she's a little obsessed with them, the other day she wore half of a plastic Easter egg for her cochlear implant. It was really cute. Reminds me of when I used to use paper clips to make retainers because I wanted one really bad. I also remember making my sister sit and be the student while we played school, we just never thought of using our FFM's!
****As a final note on the day...the no TV thing continued to work well until late afternoon. It didn't save me from the crazy that usually happens later in the day, bummer. It only took an hour and a half of crazy to bring me to my breaking point, there was a lot of yelling coming from mom this evening.
4 comments:
I love Ains! What a creative girl. And I have to say I'm impressed that you unplugged the TV. I think most moms would just leave the TV on all day to get a break.
I totally did the retainer paper clip thing too! And I used to pretend that the plastic circles from three-hole punched page protectors were contacts (although I didn't put them in my eyes--thank goodness!).
Ha Ha. Liz makes me laugh. Anyway, I just wanted to tell ya that we NEVER turn the TV on during the day. We only watch movies occasionally on weekends, so the kids never even ask to have it on. I don't think they realize it's an option. (Hubby and I watch "The Office" at night. Oh, and "Lost". Gotta have those!) Anyway, I'm not trying to brag. My point is that when we reach "the crazy", I say "everyone outside!!!!!" It's awesome, then I don't have to hear them. You should try it.
**KT
It seemed like whenever I unplugged the TV, it was harder on me--more noise, fighting, whining, etc.--than on anyone else.
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