Day 5

Day 5:
Experiment Details...
This simple experiment has really turned things around in our home! Not watching TV was such an easy transition. Ryan and I made the decision today to sell our TV. This will be especially hard during football season, however, we also decided that when basketball season approaches we will start to save some money for Blazer tickets. I am so excited to remove the temptation of allowing the TV to raise Sam. Part of his bedtime routine was watching his “Good Night Show” on Sprout. This week I have been singing to him while we rock in the recliner. He loves it and I love spending those 3 minutes (or however long he sits still) creating special memories.

Family Fun Project:
Our project today was playing “Band”. I took out several bowls, spoons and some other misc. kitchen stuff and Sam and I went to town. Nana always had a drawer in her kitchen for us to play in, and this is the first time I thought about getting this out for Sam to play with. This is something we will be doing a lot from now on!

Ways I blessed Sam:
Today, Ryan, Sam and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. We recently discovered that Sam will walk next to us for a while so we have been leaving the stroller at home. He has so much more fun exploring this way. The neighbor a few doors down has beautiful flowers lining the sidewalk, today Sam picked one...oops.

Day 4

Day 4:

Experiment Details...

Family Fun Projects:
Our project for today was pouring the cement and decorating our stepping stones. This turned out to be quite the adventure. First our cement was too watery, so after we poured it into our mold we were going to let it set before we began decorating. Well, Sam was ready for a nap after the cement was poured, so we put him to bed, then a friend stopped by, then I picked up the house a little bit. 4 hours later I realize that the cement was in the hot sun and completely hard. So now instead of having cute, personalized stepping stones we have a 18inX18in square of solid cement. We are going to re-try this project when the pain of the failure subsides!

Ways I blessed Sam:
Washed his bedding and put a new/clean blanket in his crib (Who doesn't love that?) We also played “monster baby” this is a game Ryan and I have played with Sam since he learned how to crawl. Basically you walk out of the room screeching “MONSTER BABY!” and Sam giggles and chases you. Sometimes this is played for entertainment, sometimes this is played to get Sam out of something he shouldn't be in.

Day 3

Day 3:
I realized today that I didn't choose a great week to begin this project. We have so many things going on and so much stress building. Normally in a week like this I would exhaust myself, sit around doing nothing on my free time and every night wish that I had devoted more time to Sam. This week things have been different. Even if I have an extra 10 or 15 minutes I try to think of something fun for Sam. This could be as simple as playing in the pool or pushing him around the living room on his ride-on fire truck.
I had 2 “aha” moments regarding this:
First, the attention span of a one year old is much shorter then 10 minutes. So why do I have this idea that devoting time to Sam will take longer then this?
Second, when I devote time to Sam it renews my energy and brightens my day.
I originally thought that this experiment would be one more thing on my plate that would increase stress and get pushed to the side. Didn't take long for me to change my perspective and realize that this experiment helped relieve stress and make a very busy week manageable.

Experiment Details...

Family Fun Projects:
We made a form for stepping stones, which we are going to make tomorrow. We used wood pieces we had in the garage to make a simple box. Nothing fancy, but will work great to dry cement!

Ways I blessed Sam:
I was only home with Sam for a few hours today. So we made it count by playing catch, chase and going for a short walk.