Back to the present

In January 2009 we stopped paying for TV. We lived too rural to get free stations with an antenna. For the first few months of Lamb 3's life he watched TV while we watched it, but before he was a year old the only TV the Lambs ever watched was at a hotel and when we visited Grandpa and Grandma.

When we moved here one of the first conversations I had at church brought up that we didn't have TV. One of the men at church could not believe that. He had never heard of someone without TV! We had trouble setting up our DVD player after moving (too bad the movers don't do that for you!). We eventually got the DVD player to work, but there were a couple of months of no TV or movies. We moved to the new house in March and a few months later we decided to replace our 12 year old TV, it really did not survive moving very well.

A few months ago I saw a video online about an indoor HDTV antenna. I decided to use our free Amazon dollars from our health insurance to get one. I read lots of reviews and decided on this one. It arrived before Christmas but I decided to wait until after Christmas to use it. On December 27, Ram put it up. It was so easy to just tape it to the wall and plug it in. We get a really nice picture.

I have never lived anywhere with 4 PBS stations before. We get several stations that we care about and of course the Spanish and Christian TV stations that we don't care about. The real reason why I purchased the antenna was so that I could watch Downton Abbey when the next season returns in January! I'm glad the Lambs can watch some of their PBS shows that they have watched movies from the library but not watched regularly.

I think a clue is that we went without TV for almost 4 years so Ram and I aren't hooked to a bunch of shows. I plan to watch Downton Abbey each week. Other than that perhaps Ram and I will watch if something important happens in the news, but I doubt that Ram and I will watch much more TV.

I'm still trying to figure out what to do about the Lambs TV schedule. Of course no TV during homeschool/preschool time in the morning. Of course they need to have chores done before watching TV or movies. But I still need to figure out how to not let them watch TV all afternoon and evening. Thankfully the only shows they are really interested in are on PBS or cable stations that we don't get for free. I have considered assigning a day of the week to each Lamb. On their day of the week (so twice a week without Sunday) they get to clean their bathroom and pick one hour of TV or movies. If you have any ideas for TV schedule for kids I would appreciate comments.

Today there wasn't anything on TV they were interested in so they've been watching several episodes of one of their Christmas presents, the complete Magic School Bus series DVDs.

Going back to TV was completely free for us. I'll try to give an update how it is going in a few weeks. If we decide we don't want it all we have to do is unplug the antenna.

Note: If you are reading this on Saturday, December 29, look at my sidebar. Happy #11 to Ram and Ewe!