Month 5: Media

- Oh Happy Daze

Month 5 is over and meet Jack Jack

I’ve returned to the world of Facebook and other media sites after a month of hibernating. My return is cautious, of course, since I’ve made great progress over the past month in reducing my addictions and don’t want to backslide into my previous time-wasting habits. I’ve got a blog post in the works detailing my month-long un-thrilling adventure in de-toxing myself from media; be on the lookout for that later this week.  I decided to kick off my ‘return to the internets’ party by jumping right in to tell you about our latest adventure and my big parenting fail of the week.
We have an extra little one in our house for a few weeks.
jack_jack_500_large
We’ll call him Jack-Jack.
I’m fairly certain they used our little visitor as the model for Jack Jack in this clip from The Incredibles. Definitely a little fiery at times, and quick as lightning, but mostly sweet as can be. I don’t always feel like Mrs. Incredible, though. So, on to my parenting fail:

Yesterday (Sunday) evening we decided to take the kiddos to the park because it was a beautiful 65 degree day. I forgot, though, that just because it is warm doesn’t mean the sun doesn’t still set at 5:00pm. We roll up to the park after having chatted with Charlotte the entire way about what her favorite part of the park is and what she is going to do first, etc. It is dusk. The park gate is closed. Plan B. Chick-fil-A has an indoor play place that Charlotte can now traverse independently. We report to our 2-year-old backseat driver that the park is closed. She weeps. We try to stop the tears by talking about the yummy chicken nuggets she will get to eat and the slide that she can play on after dinner as we drive to Plan B. She starts gabbing all about her chick-fil-a desires and even says “Mommy, my Chick-fil-a waiting for me”. heart melt. As chick-fil-a comes into view Chris and I both realize it is Sunday. Chick-fil-a is closed on Sundays. There will be no slide. No chicken nuggets. Plan C. The mall has a play-place. And a food court. We drive to the mall. It is 5:30. The mall closes at 5:30 on Sundays. As we back out of the parking space, Charlotte weeps again, “My chicken, my slide”. More tears. Jack Jack begins to get hungry for dinner as well. Surround sound wailing commences in the back seat.  We explain to Charlotte that the slide is closed. She weeps even bigger crocodile tears with her mouth gaped open and puts her hand over her forehead dramatically. Plan D. We drive home and let her eat bread and watch Frozen while laying under a fort.

She was just as content with Plan D as she would have been with Plan A, B, and C, but I hated that feeling of not being able to keep my word to her. This is just the first of many lessons we will both learn as mother and daughter. A lesson in disappointment for her, a lesson in keeping plans under wraps until the optimal time for me. I’m sure that isn’t the only ‘bread for dinner under a blanket fort’ kind of nights we will encounter as awesome parents.
 
 

- Oh Happy Daze

Daylight savings, month 5 fail, and our love for popcorn.

Last night was daylight savings time so we gained an hour on our clocks. I don’t dare say we ‘gained an hour of sleep’ because anyone with children or even a dog on a consistent sleep schedule knows that fall daylight savings means you will be woken up earlier than you ever imagined possible. Charlie got up at 5 this morning and on a weekend that is simply unacceptable. Our bodies are not trained to function like that anymore. We’ve become wimps. So we put Frozen on and Chris and I took cat-naps on the couch while Charlie carried on conversations with herself and asked for a billion snacks. I’m not proud of it because we pretty much failed Day 1 of ‘no media’ month. go us!
Now on to a completely different topic. Charlie is still completely besties (in her own mind) with our previous little visitor ‘Popcorn‘. When we talk about who will be coming over or whose house we are going to, Charlie is adamant Popcorn will be there. When we ask her who she wants to pray for, Popcorn is always at the top of the list. When we sing songs before bed, Popcorn is always the first honoree:

“We love you Popcorn, Oh yes we do.

We love you Popcorn, all through and through.

You are God’s gift to us, it’s true.

Yes, Popcorn we love you” 

Also included in the song is usually Popcorn’s mother, whom we know nothing about but I love that Charlie thinks of her.
Song credit goes to my parents, by the way; they came up with a personalized song for each of us (my brother, sister, and me) growing up. That little ditty above was my brother’s and I love it because we can substitute any name into it; my song will remain a secret for all eternity.
Keep Popcorn and her family in your prayers.

- Oh Happy Daze

A note from "the girl who begins tons of projects and never finishes them"

Remember that experiment in self reduction I started in January of this year? I took an accidental hiatus from it because I seriously completely forgot about it. I hate to admit that. If you are wondering what I’m talking about you can read about the premise of my ‘experiment’ here. Over the course of 6 months I tackled excess in my life in the areas of clothing, possessions, waste, and spending after reading a book by Jen Hatmaker called ‘7’. The categories still to be completed: stress, media, and food. While writing this I had originally included ‘food’ into that list of areas I’d already tackled, probably out of wishful thing. Turns out I never actually completed that month, just talked about it. Ha. That is so me.
Chris and I have had so many changes to our life over the past few months, it’s truly a miracle I’ve gotten anything done.  I’m not surprised I completely put this project on the back burner. The biggest task consuming my time recently has been my new business adventure. (since we’re talking about it, go like the Facebook page, share it a few times, and share this information with anyone who may need it. I specialize in helping children with developmental delays and disorders, particularly those families who may have just learned that Autism will now be part of their daily vocabulary). Shameless self-promotion over, I’ve decided to tackle media during the month of November.
This month’s experiment will, of course, begin on November 2nd because today (November 1st) I am busy binging on Netflix, reddit, Facebook, instagram, Pinterest, and the internets (all of them).
How Technology Is Used By Different Generations
 
Here are my parameters. Read them, study them, and slap my phone out of my hand if you see my thumb hovering over the Facebook app with the little red circle indicating 99+ notifications. I’m going to need some help with this month:

  • No television. Not even in a doctor’s waiting room. I solemnly swear. Tonight Chris and I are going to finish watching The Hunger Games: Catching Fire so I can cross that off my list and officially not pine after anything on Netflix right now.
  • No Reddit. If you don’t know what Reddit is, I emplore you don’t look into it. Don’t ask about it. Don’t talk about it. And absolutely do not put an app on your phone. I will be removing the app from my phone as soon as this is posted.
  • No Pinterest. I am not going to remove the app from my phone because in all honesty I don’t remember my user name and password and that would seriously be such a pain to try and get the app again. I am attempting to prep for the entire month’s worth of creativity and crafting needs in the next few hours before this experiment begins so I hopefully won’t find myself needing to enter the black hole of Pinterest ideas I will never actually attempt.
  • No Instagram. Instagram is not usually my go-to time-waster so I feel pretty confident that I won’t be tempted to visit.
  • Facebook will be limited. I will not be scrolling through my newsfeed. I will, however, be checking messages so If you want to talk to me about something and don’t have my number you can message me there. Don’t post on my wall. I won’t see it. I won’t be checking notification. I will resist. I swear. I will also be posting in two of my groups and on my Little Fish Speech Therapy page as needed. Gotta pay the bills.
  • I will not use the internets for anything other than business related tasks or research. Or to look up the hours for the post office. Well, let’s be realistic. Replace the word ‘post office’ with ‘Target’.
  • I will not play any games on my phone. I go through phrases with phone games and right now I’m in a lull, so hopefully this one won’t be difficult at all.

I will still listen to music, still watch sermon videos in our community group, and still use my coupon apps (don’t you dare take those away from me).
Chris and Charlotte will be joining me this month. Charlotte is already limited to 30 minutes of television a day, if even that… I’m still a stickler for following the guidelines recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics discussed in this post. The exception to that was when she was sick. I think she watched both Finding Nemo and Frozen in the same day with back to back episodes of Curious George sandwiched in between while she had the stomach bug. This is definitely going to be hard for her because she loves to ask for “FeeVee” and snuggle up on the couch with a snack. I think it will be even harder on Chris and I because we love when she can snuggle on the couch and watch “FeeVee” while we get lunches packed. Chris is also very much in the habit of being drawn to media throughout the workday because the nature of his work involves a lot of ‘hurry up and wait’ scenarios.
I think this will be a difficult month for both Chris and I.  I’m sure this may seem pointless to some. Here are a few passages from Jen’s book that really convicted me to continue with my journey in self-reduction:

“Media has changed the way we interact with one another and what we spend our time doing. Our social norms have changed.” 
“The dangerous part of our social media and technologically saturated world is not its existence but what it distracts us from.” 

“My communion with God suffers not for lack of desire but time.  And let’s be honest; I say I don’t have time, yet I found thirty-five minutes for Facebook and an hour for my shows.  I found half an hour for YouTube videos on how to fix lil’ black girls’ hair (my Ethiopian children are on deck, and I can’t have them looking nappy).  I found fifteen minutes for the radio and twenty-four minutes for a missed 30 Rock episode.  So when I say I don’t have time, I’m a gigantic liar. I have time. I just spend it elsewhere.”

“If a fast doesn’t include any sacrifices, then it’s not a fast. The discomfort is where the magic happens. Life zips along, unchecked and automatic. We default to our lifestyles, enjoying our privileges tra la la, but a fast interrupts that rote trajectory. Jesus gets a fresh platform in the empty space where indulgence resided.” 
      – Jen Hatmaker, 7: An Expermental Mutiny Against Excess

Won’t you join me? Your reduction in media may look different from ours but I’d love to hear about it if you decide to limit even one aspect of media in your life!