My Techie Kids are here to stay

I am sitting in a silent lounge.  Not unusual, right?

Wrong.  Because I didn't finish my sentence....

I am sitting in a silent lounge...IN THE MIDDLE OF THE DAY ON A WEEKEND.

I have 5 people in my house, 3 of them under the age of 6 years.  This just does not happen enough.

Luke is in bed napping, and the girls have been locked in their room making bead necklaces for over an hour.  Marty is enjoying the peace just as much as I am, we are both sitting in this silent space, in companionable silence (except for the sounds of our individual keyboards tapping - we are   part of that techie generation after all, more on that soon).

I am really enjoying this stage of mothering, the girls are best friends, always have been, but now they have that added bonus of being old enough to entertain themselves for hours on end (when they feel like it anyway).  They actually shut the door to their room now, giving me a little glimpse into the teenage years to come as they shut the adults out of their play.  I'm so used to being the one who initiates or prompts an activity that this is rather delightful.  I know that in time, I will be begging them to leave the door open or let me in, but for today...this is nice.

the girls in their playroom

As I continue to type, the girls have moved their play out to the playroom i created for them recently.  Because they share a room, I was trying to consider how best to give them a space where they could hang out alone when they want to.  We only have 3 bedrooms in the house, so sharing is here to stay.  However, we do have a few rooms that are detached from our house, so I have given one of these over to the girls for their use when they want it.  They love it, mainly as a new space to play together without the adults or baby bugging them for now, but occasionally they go out there alone too just to 'be'.  I love it because it has made the house SO PEACEFUL at times.

Its become so nice to have the girls occupy themselves however, that sometimes I get a bit frustrated with poor Luke, who is not even close to this stage yet.  Just shy of 2 years old, I am still his biggest playmate and toy.  Why is it that even as a trained early childhood teacher, it is far too easy to get tired of spending all my hours at home playing with blocks and doing baby jigsaw puzzles.I should be the best mummy ever with my wee boddler with my training!  I try and remember that at work, I am paid to be there for the babies.  It is my job, my duty to be on the floor playing- and of course, I have no distractions like housework, errands, cooking (and, I admit it, that darn facebook) to pull me away from playing with him.

But anyway, the guilts are definitely there, especially as he bursts into tears when I finally get up from doing the same puzzle 20 times in a row with him, and then he follows me to where I am, taking my hand in his chubby cute one and pulling me back to the puzzle.  I normally sigh and relent for another 15 minutes of trying to engage him in some play with his train set or cars, drawing or doing his shape sorter.  But come on Luke, I really do need to make dinner...I am right here, you can see me...just keep playing with the car NEXT to me while I work...(sobs and more hand pulling follow).    So when he hands me his DVD case with pleading eyes, It's just too easy to give in and put it on.

I admit that the child has perhaps too much screen time in his wee life while his sisters are at school or mummy has to do the housework.  He knows how to swipe his finger across to unlock the kids ipod (I will point out there that the ipod is my very old one and has no internet on it...not one purchased for them).  He has learnt to sing along to his favourite DVD's (The Wheels on the Bus and Love to Sing) which are on at least once a day. I can't wait until his birthday when I can give him the duplo we brought him - I am looking forward to a new 'real' toy for us to play with!

I love magic desktop

But in the meantime, I try and think of the positives: this is the world our children live in.  The world Marty and I live in (and we can't deny it  when we model a fairly techie lifestyle ourselves).  So we let the kids use technology..at an age appropriate level!   Kate learnt to read at 3 through "reading eggs" website.  We are in control of every show, website, device, app and music that the kids have access too, and that is because we are very intentional about it. We downloaded "magic desktop" for each of our computers, which locks off the rest of our computer - keeping it safe from accidental right clicks.  It also locks off the internet from any site that is not on their bookmarks list.   We prefer Luke to watch the same DVDs over and over again then to be exposed to new information every day.  The girls are allowed to watch the 'preschool' channels and nothing else, and they hardly ever watch TV during the school week as they prefer to play outside or with each other.     And despite all that it seems in this particular blog post, it is all in moderation.

I think on the whole, we are doing OK. The girls don't default to media for entertainment, and I know that as Luke grows older, this stage will pass too.  I will keep doing that puzzle 20 times in a row and building towers for him to knock over until eventually he gets to the stage of doing it alone.  But if you come over and find Luke singing "glub, glub, glub" with the fish on the bus, or notice the girls have their heads together over an ipod screen....please don't judge me!  I am probably just doing trying to have a coffee and conversation with you without having to build a tower at the same time.