Tech Tickets; or, how to pry the video game controller out of your kid's deformed, claw-like hands

Summer drags on. There's still a whole month of it left! My kids are BORED, you guys. Like...so...SO...bored.

Boredom = too much screen time. It's mathematical fact. We start out the day with cartoons, and then it's hot and I've got stuff to do and suddenly it's noon and I'm like wait, are you guys seriously still on the couch?? So we turn it off and then 4 minutes later they're SO BORED MOM THERE'S NOTHING TO DO PLEASE CAN I JUST PLAY TEMPLE RUN ON YOUR PHONE PLEASE PLEASE!

Now. We still use our Bored Jar pretty consistently, and it does work. But still, it's a constant battle of "No, no more TV. No, you cannot play on my phone. No, you don't need to play the Wii again." Yesterday the 7 year old took the Bored Jar around the corner and MAGICALLY pulled the ONE slip that involves playing video games. AMAZING!

So I hit up Pinterest and came across some good ideas for screen time management, including Technology Tickets. I didn't invent the idea, there are lots of much better and more imaginative bloggers out there who shared their awesomeness first. My favorite was this one from Mudpies and Makeup. I borrowed some of her ideas and put my own spin on them, to make them fit our family. She has a free printable over there, though, if you're interested! I totally don't. I'm not that handy, and I'm not that helpful.*

I chose to give them each 12 tickets at the start of the week. This is because we're normally not home on Sundays, so it's the other 6 days of the week I'm worried about. Twelve tickets gives them an hour a day for those 6 days. I didn't want them to have to earn every ticket so I'm giving them an hour a day to start, but we will be using them as a discipline tool, too. And knowing my feisty 7 year old, she may lose more tickets than she uses at first. BUT I built in some ways to earn them back, or to earn extras, by doing educational or helpful activities around the house. WIN-WIN.

To make the Tech Tickets "board":

I designed the rule sheet, printed it on card stock, then made the tickets and cute little library pockets with my Silhouette Cameo and scrapbook paper. If you have a Silhouette, I used this file for the tickets (I chose to fill them and print them, then just cut them out with scissors because my Silhouette machine was doing other things and I was too impatient to wait and use it to cut them all nice and pretty). I laminated them for extra strength, then used this file to make the pockets out of scrapbook paper that looked like lined paper (I had to resize the pockets somewhat to fit my tickets). I cut the names in vinyl using a typewritery font, and stuck them on the pockets.

Then I just glued the rules sheet and the pockets to a piece of 12x12 scrapbook paper and hung it up in the kitchen. I thought about adding a third pocket for "used" tickets, but then I wised up and realized we'd better put them up somewhere out of reach to ensure nobody tries to...recycle. Yeah, Bianca is a sneaky one. We're working on it. Don't judge.

Jack is only 2, but he loves to do everything just like his sister, so he'll like turning in his own tickets. He's big enough to ask for my phone constantly, so I guess he's big enough to go get a ticket and hand it over first!

So. Today is day 1 of the Great Tech Ticket Experiment, and I'm at work (on my lunch break! Calm down!). So the O.G. is home with the kiddos and I guess I'll find out when I get home whether it worked. :)

Why am I expecting to come home to find all the tickets either used up or lost?

*UPDATE!! So many of you asked that I went ahead and made myself helpful after all. You can download the pdf of my sign here.

I've been duped into making a new year's resolution.

In a post-Christmas daze, the O.G. and I made two rather ambitious purchases:

1. Xbox Kinect.

This was ostensibly for the Princess, who does love to play Fruit Ninja, wherein she can jump and flail and karate chop like a maniac, splattering digital fruit all over the television screen, and Kinectimals, wherein she can befriend, train, pet, and play with a digital tiger or bear cub.

His name is Nemo.

This is all well and good. But then I went and bought Dance Central 2, because I'd been told it was "fun."  This is a direct quote.

2. An elliptical.

Now. I should clarify that my husband bought the elliptical. For himself. Some kind of get-in-shape New Year's resolution or something. I made no such resolution. I never made any promises to work out on said elliptical, or to refrain from sitting on the couch eating ice cream and watching The Bachelor in my Snuggie while he works out on said elliptical. These terms were understood by all parties prior to the purchase of the elliptical.

But then I went and bought Dance Central 2. Because I'd been told. It was fun.

And somehow Dance Central 2 became some kind of weapon between us. He would get up off the couch and announce he was going to "work out," and look pointedly at my unopened Dance Central 2 box.

"What?" I'd say. "I don't feel like playing that right now. The Bachelor is on."

"You bought it, you'd better play it."

"I will! When I'm in the mood."

"You don't see me saying I'm not in the mood for the elliptical, do you?"

"What? Shut up and go work out. I'll play the stupid game. I promise."

What's his problem? How are the elliptical and Dance Central 2 even related? I mean, he bought that thing to get in shape. I bought mine because it's a game. Because I was told it was fun. What's with the pressure and the guilt?

After a few nights of this routine, I put Dance Central 2 in the Xbox and got myself ready for some fun. I did two songs. It was slow going. I'm not a Fly Girl, ok? I'm just a 30-year-old white mother of two with an Xbox Kinect. I own a Snuggie. And I use it. Often. I am not up for any hip hop awards. OK?

But I went through the step-by-step tutorial modes, learning the moves one at a time, then dancing the songs to the best of my ability. It felt...familiar. Kind of...like I'd done this before. Oh, the top 40 soundtrack was new, the hip cartoon street dancers were new.

I'm looking at you, white girl. You call those moves? 

But the basic experience...

Holy. Crap.

I'm doing a freaking aerobics video. 

And I promised to keep doing it.  Regularly.

What just happened??




Now linking up with Lovelinks #40.

Now a prize-winning post, due to my fabulous comments and the (totally respectful) way I smacked down my own mother in said comments:

Twilight. I Love it. Also, I hate it. But man do I love it.

I think the Twilight series is awful. It's a terrible example of how to be a woman, of how to love a man, of how to live your life. Worse, it's poorly written. It's full of plot holes and angst and purple prose. The movies are poorly acted, poorly directed, and somehow even more poorly written than the books. They turn Robert Pattinson, a beautiful, charismatic man in other contexts, into somebody I want to punch in the face.

I fully intend to go see Breaking Dawn: Part I as soon as possible.

I'll do this in spite of all the awful reviews. I expect awful reviews. I believe the awful reviews, and anticipate that I will agree with them wholeheartedly. But I'll put down my $10 to see it anyway.

Because I love Twilight.

No, you don't have to "love it or hate it," as seems to be the popular opinion. I do both, simultaneously, and enthusiastically. As do all my most awesome friends. YES, I recognize the pure awfulness of it. But you know what?

I have a sense of humor.

You know what else I enjoy? Plan 9 From Outer Space. "The Bachelor." Harlequin romance novels (yeah, that's right). Quentin Tarantino movies. Maple donuts. "Family Guy." Also? Pride and Prejudice. McSweeney's Internet Tendency. Shakespeare (seriously). The Bible. T.S. Eliot. Jack Kerouac. Edith Wharton. Hemingway.

I'm a smart chick. I have a college degree. Magna cum laude, y'all. It's even in literature. When asked to list my favorite authors I'll give you names like Marilynne Robinson, William Faulkner, Dave Eggers, and Toni Morrison, and I won't be posing. They really are my favorites. When asked what I'm doing this weekend, I'll tell you I'm going to see Breaking Dawn: Part I, and I am stoked.

Here's a text message from Ashley (I know, it's been awhile, and it's not even Tuesday):

Why do people have such a hard time accepting this whole franchise for what it is? Bella IS sad sullen and wincing. Why should she be anything else? Why does every heroine have to be the cookie cutter strong independent feminist? That's not real life. And speaking of which, neither is any other aspect of this story! So why does it have to model marriage and love? If it did, it wouldn't be Twilight. If we all wanted to see accurate portrayals of family and marriage, we'd just stay home and stare at each other.

Word.

Will I see you at the cinema?

MTV is 30. I'm not. Yet.

MTV turns 30 today, you guys.

That means I'm not far behind, because yes, I am the same age as MTV.  Well, I'm 19 days younger than MTV.  So I'll always have that.

I must say, I've aged so much more gracefully than they have.

Owling. Planking.

Yesterday The Bloggess tweeted the following:

I don't understand the allure of "owling". We're doing deep knee bends in the name of whimsy? Shenanigans. 

Next up, fanciful lunges and capricious squat-thrusts. And probably something involving chin-ups. Whimsical chin-ups.

I read it six times trying to figure out what she was talking about, then actually had to google "owling."  Owling??  What is that??  Google informed me that "owling is the new planking."  Planking??  What on earth?  I don't even know what the old planking is!  And there's already a new planking?

So then I tweeted that I'd had to google these things and I felt old and out of touch.

Then THIS happened:

my MOTHER:  "I knew what owling and planking were before you did."

me: "Oh thanks. Now I'm infinitely more pathetic than originally suspected."

mom:  "It was on the news."

So.  I'm not young or cool enough to just know what these things are, and I'm not grownup enough to watch the news on a regular basis.


Sidenote:  Who watches the news?  Isn't that why we have the Internet, so we can read the news when we're supposed to be working and spend our valuable TV time watching Tosh.0 and random airings of Encino Man?


Side-sidenote:  Yes, as a matter of fact I am watching Encino Man right now.  Don't judge.  It's a classic.  You know it is.

So I'm neither young nor grownup, I'm just stuck in this middle grey area, where I'm aware of nothing.  Kind of like a coma.  A pop culture coma.

The good news is, next month I'll be 30, and then I'll be firmly in grownup territory, right??  I mean, won't my TV just automatically set itself to The O'Reilly Factor or Diane Sawyer at that point?  I'm pretty sure that's how it works.