Screen Time for children

I don't watch a lot of TV, but I am trying to really cut down my other screen time to set a better example for my kids. We don't have Wii or DSs and I don't have any real kid friendly apps on my phone or iPad. And yes, that's all on purpose. I'm a firm believer in the habits you gain as a kid (good or bad) stay with you forever. Or at least are very hard to break later.


I hardly ever watch TV during thr day. My iPod is always playing though as I do need some background noise. I let my kids watch one show a day (after homework is done and piano practiced). With after school activities 2 afternoons a week, it's not often that they actually get to watch a show.

Sometimes if my husband gets home early he'll turn the TV on and they may watch with him for a few minutes before dinner is ready. So what do my kids do when they have down time - they play, they read, they color. All thr things kids are supposed to be doing. Are there days I wish I had more time to focus on the things I need to do, of course but I would never give a 3 years old her own TV.
If so that's a little different. I mean don't you have different rules for an 11 year old than a 3 year old. You probably let your 11 year old walk home from school without an adult, would you let your 3 year old. Don't think anyone would say yes to that.


A while back a Facebook friend of mine posted that she was looking for a small TV and was hoping somebody had one they were willing to give away or sell cheap. Even though I dodn't have anything to offer up, I checked the comment section as I was curious why she wanted the TV. As I suspected it was to put in her daughter's room. Her daughter is 3 years old. WTF does she need a TV in her room for? Sure kids are more tech savvy these days. I'm sure she can figure out how to turn it on/off, change channels etc. But why? Yes, this particular kid does have a much older brother (I think he's 11), so maybe he has a TV in his room, and therefore she wants her own too?   You know what my response would be, too bad he's older, maybe when you're his age you can have your own.  Well actually, my 11 year old wouldn't have a TV in his room either.

A different friend recently posted asking for app recommendations for her 4 year old to use whole they were at activities for her 6 year old. Really? You know what I do with my younger ones (6 and 3)? If the weather is good, we go outside, if not I bring books, coloring stuff, paper to play games (dot game, hangman), if all else fails, we play ispy. I mean really most of these classes are 45-60 minutes. Are you telling me you can't interact with/entertain your kid for that amount of time?  Ridiculous.

Facebook - Why I love/hate it

As I've mentioned before I was a pretty early adopter of Facebook.  I started using it when we were getting most of our babysitters through a nanny service and I wanted to know a little bit more about the people who were taking care of my kids before they actually arrived.  In the days before all the privacy settings, I could see the persons full profile, and it always put me at ease.  I never delved too deep in their private stuff, I just liked to know basic stuff, age, primary occupation, stuff like that.  Ok, may did I did check out some of the photos but I never saw anything crazy.


Little by little the privacy settings changed, and I couldn't get as much info but my friends started joining, so I stayed on it.  In many ways I love it.  I finished high school at an international school and after graduation lost touch with lots of people as they moved away or back to their home countries.  Many I have reconnected with over Facebook.  My cousins are all on and fairly active so I get to keep up with them and their kids (who at this point I haven't met yet).

Also it's the perfect social crutch for an introvert.  There is no doubt in my mind that Zuckerberg came up with the idea, not those Winklevoss twins.  I mean really, their social life was probably fine, but I would think the computer geek needed some help interacting with people. I hate small talk and now I can skip it with anyone I'm FB friends with.  If I see someone I haven't seen in a while, I already know about recent vacations, proud moments they shared, silly things their kids did, whatever.  Jumpstarts the conversation. I have noticed that after the initial fun wears off of posting constantly it really is the introverts who post more than the extroverts. 

So what's the problem?  I'm addicted.  I don't post that often (maybe once or twice a week these days). I don't get into long discussions on other peoples threads, but I do find myself checking it more than I should.  I keep my phone with me at all times, I use the app and check it at spare moments.  Do I need to?  No. I mean honestly my friends' lives aren't that exciting that I can't wait to get whatever status they post. It's an addiction, which is why I hate it.

Having said that, I do feel that using my phone less for other apps has definitely cut down my FB time, so that's a good thing.  I also like that now when I open it up, it tells me how many new stories there are since I last checked.  I've noticed as the days go by there are more stories as I tend to go longer between checking.  I check it in the morning when I first wake up - my morning "news" and then I try to ignore it til after kids are in school.  It's those little idle moments in the middle of the day that get me though.  I've started keeping my phone in my bag so I don't check it when I'm at red lights like I used to.  My main checking time is actually when I'm cooking, those brief moments when you're waiting for something to heat up, stir or whatever. Again just like reading blogs in one or two chunks a day if I don't check in as often, I end up spending less time on Facebook over the course of the day, leaving me more time to enjoy life instead of living it vicariously through my friends. 

The ToDo List

I am a list fanatic.  Pre-smartphones I had lists everywhere.  I was a loyal FranklinCovey Planner user - remember those?  Then I got a smartphone and little by little the lists disappeared, and as I've realized little by little I had become less organized, and less productive but worst of all starting to get stressed out about the little free time I did have and how best to use it.

After I started using Pinterest, I found all sorts of organizational blogs, and while many had great ideas, none really worked for me.  So after a few different experiments, this is what I've come up with.

Yep, a good old fashioned one subject notebook.  Recycled no less.  The reason it says "Guided Reading" on it is that it's a leftover from my daughter last year.

Anyway, here's the system.  Starting in the middle of the book I fold a sheet of paper in half.  On the left side I write out my monthly and weekly goals.  On the right hand side of the page behind it, I write out the days to-dos but block them according to things to do during school hours, things to do after school and finally things to do when the kids are in bed.  Breaking up the timing of the tasks really helps, I used to look at my app to do list in the morning and see 10 things on it, feel overwhelmed and feel like I failed if I hadn't made it very far by lunch time.  Now I'm setting reasonable expectations based on when kids are around and when I have quiet time, and if I manage to work on something ahead of time, yay!!  Here's a shot of today's list.  I managed all my school time, most of my afterschool stuff (that Target trip took a little longer than I had hoped), and now I have a couple of hours of quiet to work on the bottom section before I call it a night.  Not too bad, if you ask me.

So far it's been great, I had never found an app that let me track everything at once.  On some days, I'll take notes on the left hand side of the daily page, and may fold it in to the folded page if I need to keep them, otherwise I rip it out and start fresh the next day.  That's why I start in the middle though, that way I can keep notes if I need to, and as the folded sheet gets crossed off I can rewrite it on a page in front. 

Ideally I write up the next day's list before I go to bed, but sometimes do it after dropping the kids off at school. 

Apps

As I was thinking of things I would write about for this series, I was planning a post about apps and the ones that help me stay organized.  For what it's worth these are the apps I have.  I love Cozi for the calendar but don't use any of the other features.

Sunday when I was planning my menu and grocery shopping for the week, I decided to go old school and use paper and pen. Ironically at some point while I was out 3 apps were accidentally deleted from my phone. I don't know how since it's a few step process. The worst part was it took me a while to figure out which ones they were. I took it as a sign from Steve Jobs that while I rely a lot on my phone, it's really not helping me.

After about an hour I realized the missing apps were CNN, Our Groceries, and a ToDo app. I reloaded them and of course all my data is gone.  I came up with a new ToDo list system which is working really well (I'll share that tomorrow), and I'm working on a better system for my shopping list and just plan on using Our Groceries for the mid-week stuff. Once I get the new system nailed down I'll share that too.

The big difference I have noticed though is my phone addiction has gone down drastically in just a couple of days. Before if I needed to check my todo list or add something to my shopping list, I'd end up checking Facebook, email or some other time suck as well. Now I'm not doing that, and it feels good. I used to run through my to do list while walking my kids to school, the past couple of days I purposely left the phone at home and made my list when I got home. Instead I talk to my kids or listen to them talking and enjoy the walk. This could be the start of something good.

Blogging

I enjoy blogging but I probably spend a little too much time at it. I wouldn't call it wasted time as it is time I enjoy but I do need to manage my time better at it.

The writing is easy enough as I often do that on an app on my phone, although I can't type as fast as I do on a computer. The time consuming part is links, pictures and layout.  Also with the app I have a hard time adding pictures if there is more than one picture. And there have been a few times where I finished a post that I was happy with but not quite ready to publish and it disappear cause I forgot to save.

Lately I've learned a few tricks. I used to just click and drag and hope that the pictures would fit and line up the way I wanted to (which they usually did not). Now thanks to Picmonkey laying out pictures is so much easier and the captions look so much better.

I used to read most of the blogs I follow on an Feedler on my phone. The only problem is that it would only show the post title and would take a a whole to load especially if there were pictures or links. Also, commenting is really annoying (especially those with word verification).

I used to check it every morning when I wake up. Yesterday we were running late so I didn't get to. Later I got on my computer and despite the fact that my computer takes forever to load, reading the blogs I follow in Google Reader was so much easier. Since it shows the first few sentences of the post and at least one picture if applicable, I can quickly see if it's a post that I'm interested in, and skip the ones I'm not.

Also linking up to blog hops is much easier. Trying to copy and paste URLs from my blog to the link is a pain, and adding images when that's an option is tough too.

Bottom line, my new norm will be to do most of my blogging and blog reading on the computer. Much more efficient, and really the only thing I may be missing out on is being early on a blog hop, but I don't think that really matters that much.

As much as my phone helps me in other ways, it's become my go to device even when it isn't the most efficient. Time to revert to some of the full technology ways of doing things (even if that does mean I won't be quite as active).

Yes I realize this may seem ironic since I just signed up to do a 31 day series of posts, but I also think if I'm more disciplined with my time I'll be more focused and wrote better.

Endomondo

I love this app! I used to run with a pedometer but since it was a relatively cheap one I was never really sure of the accuracy.

This tracks your distance and so much more. It saves your history so you can keep track of personal bests. When you reach each mile or a finish a run it tells the time difference between that run and the previous personal best.You can map out routes online and then save them to your phone. Some people are good at estimating distances, I'm not one of them. At this point I know that if I run continuously for 30 minutes I definitely ran at least 3 miles but I like to have something more accurate.

You can access routes posted by other people (nothing really great in my neighborhood, but a few a short drive away).

You can friend people and then compete against them (I've never done this as I only have a couple of friends and they are all in Europe). You can send peptalks to friends if you see that they are out exercising.

While so far I've used it exclusively for running you can use it for lots of other sports too - cycling and kayaking are popular among my friends but also team sports

You can connect to a heart rate monitor to get access all of that info too. Mine is too old to be compatible so I don't even wear it anymore.

But really it's the stats that I love. It even has some silly ones online. Since it tracks calories it also lists how many hamburgers burned. Since it tracks distance it shows your distance compared to running around the Earth, and to the Moon. Not sure how long it will take me to run around the world.  I know I could do the math, but I don't want to.  I'd rather just watch that number slowly increase.

I know there are plenty of other training apps out there. I started with this one as I saw it come up on one of my friends Facebook posts. You can share your stats on FB. I don't. Maybe when I get better, but not yet.  Right now I don't feel like I have much to brag about.

I started with the free version and recently upgraded to the premium. Free is pretty good, but premium allows you to do interval training, which I need to do more of if I want to increase my distance.That's my next step, and I like that along with preprogrammed interval training programs, you can also create your own interval training program.  I've made one that I need to try out - we'll see how it goes.

I've Got Your Number

I needed some fluff after the last few books, and Sophie Kinsella is always good for that. I enjoy her humor and her characters.

This is the story of Poppy a bride to be who leaves her bridal shower tea due to a fire alarm and and discovers her engagement ring is missing.  As she is standing outside ready to make calls to her friends to see who has her ring, her phone is stolen.

She starts to go in the direction of the thief when she sees a phone tossed in a garbage can. She picks it up thinking it is hers. She quickly realizes it's not but rationalizes that she needs a phone and since this one is in the trash it's fair game.

Turns out the phone belonged to Violet - PA of an executive at a consulting firm. She walked off the job in the middle of a big conference. Her boss, Simon, is desperate to get the phone back but Poppy refuses, insisting that she needs the phone until her ring is returned. She promises to forward messages etc to Simon in return.  He reluctantly agrees.

Poppy has a tense relationship with her academic in-laws. She thinks they think she is inferior to them and not good enough for their son, Magnus. She is a physical therapist, Magnus is an academic like his parents.

She is scheduled to go to dinner at their house after she loses the ring and knows she can't show up not wearing it as it is a family heirloom. She comes up with a plan for the ring, but the evening is still as tense as any other of their meetings.

Poppy has an utterly useless wedding planner named Lucinda, who is constantly making excuses for all the things she lets slip through the cracks (which Poppy usually ends up taking care of herself). As the story continues, the reason for Lucinda's purposeful incompetence comes to light.

As the story unfolds, Poppy digs deeper into the emails and texts on Violet's old phone and sends messages on Simon's behalf without telling him. She has good intentions as she feels as though he is ignoring certain people and issues that need to be addressed. In most cases her actions were totally opposite to what Simon would have done and the results are entertaining.

Poppy's fiancé Magnus is a pretty flat character. Poppy receives anonymous texts about Magnus being unfaithful, just as she's in the middle of handling a big to-do for Simon that she probably shouldn't have been involved in in the first place. However her view as an outsider and a few more strange messages on her phone actually are helpful in handling a scandal the firm becomes accused of.

I won't give anymore away, except to say I was satisfied with the ending. I read this in about 24 hours. As most of her books they are quick reads.

It was also the first book I read on the Kindle app for the iPad. My mother-in-law loves her Kindle but I still think I want to stick with real books. I thought this would be a good test, but forgot that Kinsella often puts little side-bar comments in footnotes at the end of the chapter. Although they were set up so you just tap on the number to get the footnote and tap again to go back, I found myself skipping pretty much all of them as I found it kind of annoying. At this point I think I'll still continue reading real paper books, but maybe try this again for travel or once kids are back in activities again, and I want to have something with me while I wait. My library has a fair number of books for Kindle and the download was easy enough.

I think the main thing I didn't like about it though was it was too easy for the kids to come up, touch the screen and make me lose my page. Also when I'm getting tired sometimes I like to know how many pages in the next chapter before continuing - easier to do with a real book. Also afraid of dropping the damn thing if I doze off reading as I often do. Still that's the kind of stuff that comes with getting used to any new thing.

If I did use it more I would need a case for it. When I took the kids to the library, I wrapped it in a microfiber towel - lame I know, but I didn't want the screen getting scratched. I found two cool ideas for DIY cases on Pinterest that I may try to combine to make something that would work for me. At this point we hardly ever use the iPad but I would like to use it more.

iPhone and Mommy apps

For a long time I put off getting an iPhone because I loved my Palm Centro. It wasn't fancy and didn't really have any apps but it was really sturdy and withstood a ton of abuse from my kids before it finally died. Last spring I made the switch to the iPhone 4 and now I wonder why I waited as long as I did. I am a list lover at heart and can't live without this wonderful device that I occasionally use to make actual phone calls :)

I don't have any games on my phone as I don't want my kids playing with it too much (I don't want them to break it) but I have a lot of apps that make being a Mom much easier. I use the Blogger app a lot, to write on the go and then I edit or add links from my home computer.

Cozi is my new favorite. Last year I would complain to my husband that I never was able to take time to myself as I didn't have access to his calendar. Now we have a family calendar on Cozi and he puts any evening or weekend appointments on it. I've added a couple of "Mom's Day Off" to it, and plan to try for at least one a month.

SplashShopper is a good grocery list app, but it was better when it was on the Palm. Still it saves all the items you have bought in the past so you can just check off items as needed instead of having to rewrite it every time.

Pinterest is a new favorite.  It's great for recipes, crafts, decorating ideas, things to do with the kids, and just something fun and inspiring to look at when waiting for kids at pick up.

I'm always on the lookout for new apps and wish I knew how to program because I have an idea for one that would make life easier.  I would call it "onestopshop" or something like that. My kids are pretty good about coming with me to run errands but their patience wears thin the more times they have to get in and out of the car (as does mine with all the buckling and unbuckling). With this app you would enter your errands, and then it would find the strip mall where you could do the most (or all) of your errands in one place. For example, if you need to go to Target, the supermarket, Bestbuy and a bookstore - would you rather drive to 4 different places or go to one place get one cart and hit all the stores in one go and be done with it. I'd even be willing to drive further if it would make me more efficient.  At this point I know what stores are at most of the strip malls around me, but it took a few years to figure it out.