Unplugged

Once again, an unfaithful blogger is back online and attempting to write something worthwhile.

I have a good excuse for my latest blogging lapse.

Last week our entire family "unplugged" as a Lenten exercise the week before Easter AND as a chance to get a good glimpse of how plugged in our family has become.

It was fantastic.  Difficult, but fantastic.

No Facebook (oh, how I love Facebook).  No television (oh, how we all love television).  No video games (Dear Lord, how my boys LOVE video games).  No music (my poor daughter thought she was going to die).

Actually, we did listen to some worship music on occasion.

And David didn't suffer.  On the contrary, WE suffered through his repertoire of Baby Einstein dvds just like we always do.

Mark read three books.

I read two books.

My daughter is now reading FOUR books... at once.

Jackson and Charlie discovered a new series of books and began to devour them.

We played Monopoly.

Scratch that.  We STARTED playing Monopoly.  That game never ends.

We played Bananagrams.  Ever played this?  So.  Much.  Fun.

Mark and I played cards when the kids went to bed.

And we talked.  A lot.

Not that we don't talk around here.  We do.  But we talked more.  And we were more thoughtful in our conversation.  Loved this.

Jackson commented many times over how much he was enjoying the week and how he could see the hold that video games had had on his heart and mind.

That alone made the entire exercise a success, in my opinion.  Remember, he's ELEVEN.

So, I think we all agreed (except for maybe Morgan) that this was a good exercise and one that we should observe more often.

At least once a year.

Kidding.

And last night Mark and I broke our weeklong screen fast with the season finale of Parenthood.

Sigh.