In May, you may recall, I finally talked Mister Man into letting me get rid of our satellite. I have been working on that for years. I talked him into it once and it lasted 2 weeks until he went into a serious depression without SportsCenter. It was so sad I caved. But this time we both felt like the TV was bringing junk into our house that we needed to get out. Even knowing that, I was still scared. It was like falling down the rabbit hole into a new world!
So, I guess this is a post from Wonderland! Which it is. Once I got here, I kept waiting for some great disastrous fallout, but it never came. The children didn't even really ask for it, they just moved on. They didn't walk in the house, think about the 106 shows recorded on dvr, sit down and fall into the tv coma. They found other things to do.
They read more. They made popsicle stick houses. They played with friends. The little boys spent the entire summer outside with the hose or the baby pool or the bugs. They got out the board games, (or bored games).Then they learned to love playing. We had a tee pee built in the back yard for most of the summer, many leather ipod cases were sewn, and the stuffed animals in our house were better taken care of than any other animals in the world!
We did choose to keep our Netflix account. I have seriously considered getting rid of it though, because even with the parental controls on, you can still see all the categories and descriptions of the movies, which is horrifying in many cases. I just lack the faith that I need to not be able to pull up a Backyardigans episode in an emergency.
So, I locked everything down to PG and became even more of a Nazi about the computer. With a little guidance, they discovered the magic of Bill Cosby. They watched every season like 3 times! Those sneaky kids would slip in and watch the Cosby Show when I wasn't looking! And I loved it, because there is nothing like that anymore! It was real comedy. Not crude bodily function jokes. Not easy sexual-innuendo one-liners. It was creative, positive humor. And it was safe.
Another thing I did not miss about having the TV gone, was the noise. There is so much chaos in my house and life, and my soul needed less noise! There were always a bunch of loud, annoying people that came into our home everyday on the Disney channel and Nickelodeon. So with a wave of my magic wand, the annoying people were suddenly gone. AND I HAVE NOT MISSED THEM!
But I do have a problem. And its name is Football Season. And I fear being vacuumed back out my nice, quiet, safe, rabbit hole. You see, Dallas Cowboy football is a family tradition here. Every week we have Cowboy treats when Dallas scores. We put up crayon Cowboy pictures on the windows. The kids put on their Cowboy jerseys (although one child is flirting with Cowboy apostasy). And when Dallas loses, just like when he was a boy, our dad has to go to his room, shut the door and shed a few tears.
Since I am not the only adult in the house, I have to give and take with the other adult, to make sure he continues to love me. So we are experimenting. He got one receiver, without tivo. It is a secret, and I have been assured that we can keep it that way. I am told we will take it out and discretely hook it up on game day, then it will slip back into the recesses of our room. I must admit, it feels like opening that Jumanji game, where all the animals are going to flood out and ruin my world, but we will see!
The good thing is that I know I can live without TV now. And that I love it. Without satellite, good things have happened in our home, like dad plays basketball with the kids (when its not 108). We are getting homework done easier, and my life it simplified. What that means is that I am making Wonderland my permanent home and I'm only climbing out of my rabbit hole for football season, and other special occasions. Like a Jazz game.
Oh, I am so scared! This is how it begins, isn't it? Falling up.
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