Ask and Take

Our children have different personalities.   This is nothing unexpected, as anyone with more than one child will tell you.  Our children are different in many ways, some of which is based on both gender and nature, but some of the ways they’re different are just personality.

On the weekdays we typically don’t allow the children to have “screen time”.  This means television (for the one who can see the screen), video game systems or iPads.   They both have an iPads as my husband and I have upgraded ours over time and passed ours down to them.   There are lots of apps on their iPads and they can watch videos, movies and shows on them as well.   For a child who needs to have a screen two inches in front of her face to see anything, the iPad is a wonderful thing.

On the weekends or holidays our children are allowed to spend time on their iPads come Saturday morning.  They know this is coming and sometimes will even ask, “is tomorrow an iPad day?”  We pull them out on Friday nights, plug them and their headphones in at a certain spot in our bedroom so when they wake up they can come and get them.

This works out well for us as it gives us a chance to sleep a little later than normal and it works out for them because they can watch shows and spend a leisurely weekend morning around the house.   I remember when I was a child I looked forward to getting up on Saturday mornings and watching cartoons while my parents slept late.  

Our children are different though in that one child, my son, will come in, grab his iPad and headphones and head out of the room.  I don’t even have to open my eyes to know it’s him.  My daughter on the other hand comes in, stands next to the bed and says, “can I do iPad?”   We tell her yes and then she gets her iPad and quietly leaves the room.   She is the permission asker.

The Big Boy Update:  My son loves Legos.   Any time he gets something new he puts it together and then wants to keep it on the table to play with it for several days.  His latest is a Nexo Knights set.   I’m not sure what was happening in his mind this afternoon but he went upstairs and got the Daelek’s (bad guys) from my Dr. Who Lego set we had displayed in the craft room and brought them down to fight against the good guys:

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter is a great helper.  She helped dad make donut holes this morning and the laundry with me this afternoon.   She helped me with lots of little things like cleaning up all day long.   She likes doing things together.