There was some cleaning and picking up and trying to get the house organized after a busy week.
There was crocheting on the couch while listening to podcasts.
There was some (just a little) watching of the royal wedding (Prince Harry married an American, Meghan Markle).
There was playing board games on Saturday night (Smallworld) and getting excited to find some new favorites this summer in MN.
There were a lot of requests to play Minecraft (Nico got a screen recording app he is really excited about - he wants to become a YouTuber famous for his Minecraft tutorials and videos and has been monitoring his "likes" very closely - apparently it is not ok to just have "likes" from your family). Andrés flipped out quite a few times because of those requests. He seems to think his screen time when he was little (which was a LOT) was somehow better than the screen time of kids nowadays (I tend to disagree). This is making for a lot of arguments in our house at the moment. I agree that screen time needs to be monitored, but we can't get over the fact that nowadays so much of daily life is on our phone: text-messaging to keep in touch with family and friends, reading ebooks/magazines, watching the news, reading the paper and news articles, watching videos to learn a new craft or art or basically just about anything your heart desires, listening to music and reading the lyrics of your favorite song, etc. Only a small portion of our phone use is even about gaming. It's difficult (not impossible) to reconcile all of this so-called "screen time", but there is no way you can compare today's screen time with the screen time of the past (TV - which was so much more passive). Minecraft, their game of choice, is a platform that is so rich in terms of creativity, imagination, collaboration, and problem solving, that it is difficult for me to see it as a mere "video game" anymore. I've played Minecraft, and it is seriously all of those things above, and fun to boot. In addition, there is no getting over the fact that Minecraft is basically digital Legos, so it is no wonder my kids love it so much, when they've loved Legos their whole lives.
Speaking of Legos, I spent my Sunday in Lego hell. The kids haven't been playing with their physical Legos much anymore, and they are all over the place, so I've been working (slowly) on getting the sets organized and the Legos put somewhere for later. I'm not sure what "later" will entail - selling them? giving them away? saving them for grandkids? The only thing I know is that we probably have over $3000 in Lego sets and I am very reluctant to put them away forever (or give them away to nonfamily for free), but super excited to fix up the kids' rooms so that they are more in tune with what they need as teens/preteens. However, picking apart and sorting teeny tiny Lego pieces for over eight hours is not a lot of fun. My thumb, back, legs, butt, and fingers were killing me by the end of the day, and a few times I broke down and just started crying from the sheer pain. My fingernails were destroyed and my fingers started bleeding at the end of the day. I won't lie that part of me was also crying because I felt so sad that this stage in our life was drawing to a close. The boys are so big, not really "boys" anymore, and it's fun but also sad. I just get too darn emotional!
The boys eventually came in to help, but here was the problem: Nico got so excited seeing his Legos again and all the "cool pieces" in the sets I was taking apart, that he decided to open up and mix all the bags I have been carefully putting together. I went from telling him no way, to letting him open some bags, to just letting him do whatever (with the promise that he would somehow keep them picked up and contained). We brought the card table down from upstairs and put it in his room so he would have space to build, and soon he came up with a really cool airplane, all from his own imagination.
So, the Legos got picked up (somewhat) and then messed up again, but what can I say? The fact is I am happy he is playing with and getting excited about them again (he gets excited about a lot of stuff - love that kid) and how could I possibly say no to playing with his own toys!? Yet, I can't help but want to cry again, thinking of all the work I put into getting those things organized and the fact that now they are not.
Sigh. #legomom LOL
1 comment:
You poor thing! Lol (the Legos)
And I also have to agree with you on the screen time thing. Can’t compare. I’m not a parent (obviously :-P) but I think Andresee should relax a little on this topic haha...it’s different world these days, get used to it! ;-)
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