Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Turned Off

Last week were some dark days at Chez Necessity. Illness, you ask? A death in the family? No, it was TV Turnoff Week. Every year the school system sends home these cute little notices announcing this annual festival of self-denial. Last year was our first experience with the whole thing, as Miss Serious had only begun Kindergarten. We gamely unplugged the TV's and found other ways to amuse ourselves for the week. I was stunned, however, when chit-chatting with the other parents picking up their kids that we seemed to be the only adults participating. They all had the kids not watch TV, but then after they went to bed, it was a free for all.

I couldn't see expecting the kids to do something I wouldn't do, so we again followed the rules, unplugged ourselves, and hunkered down. Now, this is supposed to be hard on the kids. It's not. They enjoyed themselves. In fact, I got some requests that we continue the experiment for another 3 weeks; this noble gesture ended as soon as they were allowed to turn the TV on again. I found it much harder to do this year. I'm one of those people that airily says, "Oh, I really don't watch that much TV." Apparently I do, because this week was almost physically painful at times. (I also don't think I eat a lot of sweets, but somehow managed to promptly lose 3 pounds when I gave them up for Lent.)

The week of darkness is now over, and I have never been so happy to open up the TV Guide. Unfortunately, there isn't a darn thing on...could all the good stuff have been on last week, and I missed it?

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