Screenless Saturday

As the self appointed CEO of this joint, I made a spur of the moment executive decision while lying in bed at 7 a.m. on Saturday morning, wondering why I wasn't sleeping in.  I decided that Saturdays around here, from this point on, will be known as screenless Saturdays. This simply means that from Saturday morning until 7pm  Saturday night, there will be no video games, no tablets, no Facebook, no computers, no TV, no cell phone gazing and grazing.  No screens, all day Saturday.

For many many years, Saturday was the day the boys looked forward to for playing video games. They usually didn't play much if at all during the week, but on Friday nights and Saturdays after chores were done, video games were pretty much free reign. And that worked pretty good when they were in school. But somewhere along the way, with the addition of cell phones and tablets, and WiFi, and Netflix, our screen time got ridiculously out of control. Week nights are spent in front of our various electronic devices, sometimes working and sometimes playing, but they are always on. And Saturdays have become the worst. Dan goes downstairs and plays video games, Duncan is upstairs playing video games, Olivia is squirreled away in her room on her tablet or at the computer, and I am glued to my phone. Audrey is the least offending, but she does have a ton of homework, and she does a lot of writing on her laptop.

In all honestly, most weeknights, I don't have the energy to fight it. We are all tired, and when we get everything done, we all just want to veg out for a few hours, and that is okay. But Saturdays should be a day when we get a few things done, or at least acknowledge the existence of our family members. Hence, screenless Saturdays.

To my surprise, nobody even balked that much. I mean, it was only the first week, so I'm not holding my breath. But the first one was pretty successful. Dan was a handyman machine, got Audrey's car fixed, and the lawn edged and trimmed. Duncan worked until one, and he was kinda bummed that he couldn't come home and escape to his games. He survived though. He helped Dan get the lawnmower fixed. Olivia and I went to Wendy's and hung out at the mall together. She wore lipstick for the first time too, so that was exciting. Audrey was at youth conference all day. After dinner, Olivia suggested we go see Lego Batman together. It was a nice Saturday. We will see what next week brings.