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Saturday Morning Countdown

The kids wait all week for Saturday mornings to trade their school books for the Game Cube controllers. For Charlie, the anticipation is akin to Christmas. He blasts into our bedroom at Oh-Dark-Thirty and invites Stuart to join him for a game of Metroid or Zelda. Stuart always declines politely, sends him back to his room with instructions not to come out until the sun comes up, and ducks his head under the covers for a little more shut eye.

We tried something new this week. I don't know what possessed us, maybe we were delirious. We told Charlie, "No media until eight o'clock." We couldn't have been too hopeful about the success of this plan because we didn't even bother to show him what the hour of eight looked like on the clock. We just sent him off to bed and expected to see him as usual before the sun came up.

But he didn't show up. 6:30 came and went. Not that we noticed because we were still sleeping but we figured out that he handn't been there at 6:30 when we heard him out in the kitchen with Faith and Claire at 7:51. Stuart and I had our heads close together on one pillow listening to this conversation:

"Seven...five...one. Seven fifty-one. It's seven fifty-one, Claire. Is it almost time?"

"We have to subtract the one from ten, Charlie. Nine more minutes until eight o'clock."

"It's almost to my media time! Media time is at eight o'clock! Seven...five...six. Seven fifty-six. How much time now, Faith?

"Subtract six from ten. Four more minutes."

"Four more minutes! Four more minutes! Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh!" (Insert happy little tune here and repeat for the next four minutes.)

"Eight...zero...zero. It's eight o'clock! Let's go!"

And they were off down the hall. Who says you need school books to do school? And sometimes kids will surprise you and do what they are told.
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Comments

Sarah said…
Tell me more about media time - that's what we call it now too, now that we actually have media. Do they only play on the weekend? Is there a limit? Do they get a whole day to get it out of their systems?

sem
August 24, 2008 at 10:04 PM
Kate said…
Sar,

The official policy is that John gets one hour in the morning on school days. This gets him out of bed at a reasonable hour. The other kids get about two hours total on Saturday morning. There are, from time to time, infractions but overall this system works pretty well for us.

Kate
August 24, 2008 at 11:07 PM
Luke Holzmann said…
That is adorable!

~Luke
August 25, 2008 at 1:40 PM
Faith said…
How cute! :)
And I like the "media time" restrictions. (I know DH will be all over it, too! ;) He has strong feelings on the subject ...)
August 25, 2008 at 1:46 PM
Alana said…
Very cute. And the best part is you weren't even the one teaching!
August 28, 2008 at 2:41 PM
Jennifer@DoingTheNextThing said…
That is so cute - just need the right motivation! We call it "tech time" and I allow an hour on school days - during the Littles naptime, to help keep things quiet - IF they've completed all their schoolwork and chores. We tried the weekends only thing, but my kids tend to get addicted and the looked forward to it a little TOO much. The everyday taste helps them keep it in its proper place among other family weekend activities.
BTW, my kids adore Zelda and Metroid! We have a Wii, but they still play those old GC games often. #2 son just "beat the final boss" on Zelda - again! ;)
August 30, 2008 at 8:05 AM
Mary@notbefore7 said…
We aren't in the age of media time quite yet, though my 4 year old is becoming quite infatuated with her preschool computer games.

My hubby is counting down the days until one of them gives him a reason to buy a Wii....LOL
August 30, 2008 at 10:49 PM
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