TV Fast

God has woken me up way too early the last several mornings, and I have tried to ignore Him and go back to sleep, which hasn't worked.  So when He woke me up again this morning, I finally asked Him what He wanted.  He immediately told me to fast from the TV today.  Not just me, but the kids too.  I argued with Him a little, but He was persistent, so I started developing a plan.

Our mornings usually begin with snuggling in the bed together, watching TV.  How would the kids react when I told them there would be no TV?  What would we do instead?  God was right (duh!).  We've been depending on the TV too much lately.  I started making a list of alternative activities, and I started actually looking forward to it.  But I had had awhile to wrap my mind around the idea.  The kids would be shocked and upset, I predicted, with no chance to get used to the thought.

Noah was the first one up, and he crawled into bed next to me and reached for the remote.  I said, "Oh, wait! We're going to do something exciting today!"  When I told him about it, I was totally unprepared for his reaction: he smiled!  Then he said, "Can we just stare at the blank screen?"

A few minutes later, Sarah woke up and started heading for the TV.  When I broke the news to her, she yelled, "NO!", but I told her that it was God's idea and that you can't say no to God.  She said, "Can the boys play Wii?"  When I said no, she looked pleased and said, "Good."

We all ate breakfast together, which never happens, and I gave quiz questions from Noah's Star Wars book.  He was delighted that he did better than his dad.  Mike left for work, and we played dictionary detective.  I read a definition of a word from a children's dictionary, and they had to guess the word.  Then we played food charades, where one of us acted out eating a food, and the others had to guess which food it was.  That was kind of a flop, because Sarah just chewed and chewed, no other clues. Then she was mad that we couldn't figure out what she was pretending to eat.

We played Star Wars and Fetch for a long time, had a snack, had a peanut-shelling contest, folded laundry, looked for hidden pictures in a Highlights magazine, set up DVD cases and tried to shoot them down with Nerf darts, etc.  We had lunch (while discussing our favorite TV shows) and read books, and now it's quiet time.  After this, we have a Kroger and library trip planned.   The kids are handling it better than I thought.  Maybe we should continue it!