It has not escaped my attention that I am more than thrilled to be returning to our school routine. In fact I’m certain that I am more excited than the boys. Though that giant box of art supplies that arrived last week helped to excite them a bit.

For me the return to our routine means a few things are happening this week:
1. the wii is off till the weekend (our wii days)
2. the tv is off more often (we do watch some during the week)

I gave the boys their first real summer vacation this year. We called an end to school for the year and I let them loose. No restrictions on entertainment options. I think they enjoyed it for awhile but it wasn’t too long before the squabbling started. Thankfully we also had plenty of time to be outdoors in those first few weeks. And we had a number of activities on the calendar too.

But last week it rained. And rained. Add to that the fact we had only a handful of activities to attend, left us stuck inside and mostly home. It was an “on” week for the boys. The TV was ON and the Wii was ON. By the end of Thursday, I was done with the TV and the Wii. I declared Friday morning that school was back in session come Monday.

In my head I was chanting “no more tv! no more wii!” but I refrained from dancing round the kitchen. But tonight was an excellent example of why I like our restrictions on wii and TV. Last week we would have had two boys parked on the couch unless we were outside. This week I had them in the kitchen helping me tidy up which morphed into Jr. reading aloud while Lil’B and I shelled pistachios for a cooking project. It was such a nice hum of activity versus the squabbles of last week.

The happy hum pleased my heart.