Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!!! I can't believe it's been so long since I last blogged. I had to double-check the date of my last post - December 21st. Can you believe it?

Wanna know what I've been doing with my time????

Playing with my kids.

Wanna know why?

We got rid of the TV.

Yay for us!! Okay, actually we still have the physical TV, but we cancelled Direc TV, which is the same thing because we don't pick up a single channel without a satellite. Well, okay, if I stand on one leg, crook my arm up to my left ear and bend slightly forward to the right then I might be able to pick up ABC. But if I sneeze or get an itch then we'd be in big trouble.

Hmmmm....maybe I shouldn't have dropped out of yoga all those years ago, eh? Probably would've been able to stand on one foot for a lot longer than 15 seconds. (Actually, I lasted all of 5 minutes with yoga. All that silence and deep breathing stuff got on my nerves).

Anyway, the point is that we are now TV-free - for the most part. Noah still likes his Elmo videos and Sim and I watch a DVD when we can (my recommendation: the movie Once. LOVED IT. Best music ever. Soooo sweet. Not for the kids, though, because of language. But great, simple, wonderful, fantastic movie). But mostly we are TV-free. About 99.5% of the time - except for the odd video and it is so FREEING. I just feel so free and no longer chained to my TV. There's a whole world to explore and kids to play with and wagon rides to take and towers and castles to build and books to read and playdoh to mold and all sorts of wonderful, fabulous things. I mean, I did do all those things back when TV-ruled-my-life, but you never realize how unattentive you are until you turn the thing off. I don't have to keep straining my ear to hear when the commercial break ends, you know? And I don't have to run and set the VCR (yes, we were a decade behind technologically-speaking) to record a show because it coincided with the kids' bedtime. It's just awesome and has changed our whole family dynamic. It's been great.

And for some reason that has affected my blogging time. I'm not quite sure why. I think it's because we're just having a blast and haven't sat down to the computer that much. Also, Sim's had some time off and we've just been hangin' and chillin'.

Things have been going really good. Nandini has turned a corner and has just melted right into our family. She's doing great. Her speech is coming along - slowly but surely. She's till running all over the place, but we've managed to convince her to keep her clothes on. She still gets jealous of Noah, but for the most part , she adores him. She calls him Nola Par-ta (Noah Partha).

Eli is getting a bit better with Nandini. He plays really well with her, but can't stand to share. He visits Time-Out quite a bit. But, you know, it's to be expected. It's only been 6 weeks and it's just been him and Noah for the last 3 1/2 years. He's developed a wicked sense of humor lately. He found a huge stick in the woods that he pretends to harpoon Nandini with. "Come here big whale!" I'm not quite sure where he picked that up from - fortunately, he has never actually harpooned Nandini, and I can assure you we don't let him run around with the stick unsupervised. :-)

Noah is doing awesome. Lots of little things that are really big things to us but probably little things to other people. He seems to be putting 2+2 together lately. Like, if he wants to stand on a stool, he'll go into the other room and actually get it. He also peed on the potty for the first time EVER! True, it ran down his legs because he refuses to open his legs on the potty, but he actually sat on it. He's also started to let us know what he wants by us asking a question and holding up one finger for yes and one finger for no - and then he chooses what he wants. "Do you want a bath? Are you hungry? Do you want to go outside?" He's also playing a teeny tiny bit with Nandini and Eli - just a little bit, but that's huge.

We start taking him back to Austin in a few weeks for more RPM training. We also just started a new homeopathy remedy - Causticum - 2 weeks ago, so we're excited to see if that brings about any changes. We're just really excited about what 2008 is going to bring. Very, very excited.

Okay, Nandini is getting quite frustrated that I'm on the computer and ignoring her. Actually, she's throwing a wall-eyed fit, so I'd better go. Just wanted to post some pics and wish everyone a Happy New Year!

Leslie

Comments

Anonymous said…
Happy New Year to all of you too! I'm glad all is going so well for you. Can't believe it's only been 6 weeks since Nandini has been with you. Thank you for posting the pictures- you look all great. How come Sim and you don't look any older than you used to? It's been 7 years since we last saw each other after all!!! Gosh, I wish we would get rid of the TV...but since I'm not the one watching, it seems that I'm not the one allowed to decide!
Hope to read more from you soon!

Take care, Geri
C said…
Our kids just get computer and TV on the weekends (they have to earn coupons for it during the week).

It's amazing how much I will see them choose something else over TV now. Personally, I really enjoy the quiet!!!!! You think kids are loud? that TV is deafening sometimes.

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