Last Saturday, as many of you know, my husband and I had an epic parenting fail when the lovely family night we had planned for our children turned into a scene from The Exorcist. To keep my sanity I am going to pretend that evil forces invaded my children’s bodies and caused them to act like entitled, ungrateful, punks. It’s really best for all of us that way.
The consequence for their demonic behavior was that they were not allowed any electronics on Sunday – No iPad, no XBOX, no Wii, no computer, nothing that blinked or beeped. They were devastated. I mean D-E-V-A-S-T-A-T-E-D. From the way they pouted and sulked I am certain they were convinced Sunday would be akin to spending the day at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp in solitary confinement. Which of course would mean no Sunday Funday for me and my husband either! Ah the joys of parenthood!
To my surprise the boys started off the morning with absolute angelic behavior. They were full of “yes mama” and “what can I help you with, mama.” I then made the critical mistake of jumping the gun and started to pat myself on the back – I am going to blame it on not being fully caffeinated at that point. Of course no sooner had I started patting away when I realized their good behavior was all a ploy which I’m pretty sure was devised by my evil genius older son. Because about mid-morning they came walking up to me and in their cutest seven and eight year old boy way asked if they continued to be good if I could please let them have their electronics back by twelve. Which of course pissed me off – mostly I was mad at myself for being taken in by the dimple popping cuteness of my tow-headed sons.
After being told in no uncertain terms that not only would there be no shortening of their sentence but if they asked me again they would lose their electronics for all of Monday as well they skulked off to plot their next move – or so I thought.
Turns out my threat of two electronic-less days put thee fear of God in them and they decided to make the best of what to them was a bad situation. So they actually decided to play together. Outside. In the yard. On the trampoline. They got sweaty and dirty. And when they grew bored my husband went outside and threw a football to them. And then they cleaned their rooms. And then later that evening we played board games while we ate dinner. I had forgotten how much fun Monopoly could be! And the game Apples to Apples had them hyperventilating they laughed so hard!
That night as we were winding down and cuddling they told me how much fun the day had been and that they want every Sunday to be electronics-free. I was dumbfounded. Then they back tracked a little and said maybe they could have electronics for an hour in the morning and an hour at night. I told them we could see. I’m thinking about offering them some kind of reward if we can go the whole day with no electronics at all – like a trip to the indoor trampoline place. But regardless if it is a perfectly free electronics day or not I love that I now know that truly what my children treasure more than even Minecraft (who knew?) is time with me and my husband. And since that won’t always be the case because someday they will eventually become teenagers we need to soak up every moment we can!
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