Electronics fast 2015

I sit now using the very thing I am supposed to avoid, and man I love it. Our family has had an electronics fast this month. We usually do this in June but decided to bump it up a month this year and try May. This meant that my husband only watched the Grizzlies play in the play offs and not every other team that won and lost. This meant that I missed birth announcements, graduations, favorite dinners and post that people wrote just looking for a connection and for someone to acknowledge that what they thought mattered through a thumbs up or a "like". This meant that my kids didn't dive into the second season of Avatar The Last Air Bender or play one of the many electronic devices we can all get caught up in. I did allow myself the leniency to communicate with friends via messaging apps, though on a limited basis, and email and I even "allowed" myself to pay some bills online. So you all are just dying to hear my consensus, right? Well, this is what I learned this year. I have missed looking at my less than one year old child's chubby little fingers and the perfect lines of her closed eyelashes and nose while she nurses to look at birth announcements and graduations and favorite dinners. She has grown up in the past year and I have watched it day in and day out but in the most intimate moments when I had her close to me I looked away. My two year old makes a lot of messes when no one is looking. When someone is looking, he still makes a lot of messes but man he's cute doing it and he has a smile in those moments of mischief that is melt in your heart fantastic. My five year old likes "The Mouse and the Motorcycle" better than "Smash Bro's. on her DS. And it took her a day, A DAY, of reading lessons to begin reading simple books on her own and to provoke her love of reading once I found the right approach. My nine year old does not struggle with a love of all things shiny in the electronics department so all I learned there was that she's smarter than the rest of us in that regard and that of course she is delightful, but I already knew that. My eleven year old is the one that helped me impliment this. The first year I did this he thought he would waste away with no access to the XBOX, Playstation, DS, iPods, or Netflix. Now he almost begs for it. I think it gives his brain a chance to detox when what he is doing most is reading, playing with his siblings and finding out what things he likes most in life. Now, this reads like a predictably boring tale of chastising caution to turn your social media and video games off and BE in the moment with your family. I guess it is but it is not meant to be. I got all of these benefits though and from the outside looking in this was not much of a fast on my part. I have to admit, I accidentally bought a $20 bench off of facebook when it popped up on my computer while chatting with a friend at the end of the day. I looked up recipes to feed my family and pinterest post about an event I was doing and watched veterinary training feats online, not because I had too but just because I could. And you know what? It felt good. I love the ease of our lives through technology. I just realized more than usual this year that I don't want them blanketing my life to the point that I can't look up. The kids have decided we will keep this trend through the summer and I like that I can agree without trepidation. I like that it will become a habit to actually live the moment while I'm in the moment instead of it being a concentrated effort. Until next time, The Not So Molly Mormon