January 16, 2023 - Monday



I needed this extra day off. It was pretty relaxing...and even a bit refreshing. Sadly, last night's sleep sucked, thanks to going to bed too late and Ollie coming in at 4:30 and then 6:30, but I've had worse. I spent a bunch of time reading and took the kids for a hike in the afternoon. I'm trying to make a push for the kids to earn their screen time with movement time again. The girls did yoga and it was ADORABLE. Jonas just sat on the floor watching them with a sneer on his face the whole time. He refused to participate. I offered him the elliptical, but it was too "boring", so he didn't do that either. He spent a while in the basement and told me he did about 10 minutes of working out...whatever that means to him. For 20 minutes of active time, they get an hour of screen time. I feel like it's pretty generous, honestly, but my kids... 

I have just spoiled them with TV. That is the absolute truth. These bad habits are my fault. For many years, it felt necessary to have TV time. I needed it because it helped to occupy the kids when I had my hands full with babies. It also helped them be chill and not need me quite as much. I can't regret the decisions I made, because they felt like the best I could make at the time, but now I have to do the hard work of trying to undo the damage an excess of screen time has done. And Ben is only with me on this to a certain extent. He likes the TV to be on ALL THE TIME. If it's not on when he comes up from work, he looks around all confused and says something like, "What's going on? Are the kids in trouble or something? Just turn a show on for them." 🙄 BUT I don't want to keep up this habit. Jonas and I are clashing about it all the time now and I know that at least some of his laziness is because of it...and not a little of his mindset is because of it. He has this feeling like nothing is fun EXCEPT things that involve screens. I'm just getting fed up with fighting about it and really want to just get rid of everything! I'm going to try to wean them slowly though. 

Nothing else really happened today, other than HC at night. It has been working well getting Ollie and Ruby to bed before the sitter comes over. Back to life tomorrow! 







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