A whole new (digital) world....

A whole new world
A dazzling place I never knew
But when I'm way up here
It's crystal clear
That now I'm in a whole new world with you
Now I'm in a whole new world with you  

Unbelievable sights
Indescribable feeling
Soaring, tumbling, freewheeling
Through an endless diamond sky

'Aladdin' had it right. It's a whole new world we're parenting in, and we're the first ones through this particular endless diamond sky.

Technology is ever-present in our lives.

For one thing, I cannot even imagine what I would have done with an iPod as a kid. AMAZING. These kids will never not have ALL of their music in their pocket. Can you believe that!? What a treasure!

But managing all this technology gives me a headache. Our parents only had to worry about TV time, and heck, I don't think they really 'worried' about that much at all - we didn't have cable TV at my house until I was probably 18, and there was only so much good TV available over-the-air on the black and white set in my bedroom. I don't even really remember watching a ton of TV as a kid, I'm pretty sure when I was their age it was only on Saturdays that we watched cartoons, Abbott & Costello, and whatever Saturday afternoon movies were on. We also watched "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island" at Grandma and Granddaddy Wenzell's house on Friday nights. We watched "The Andy Griffith Show" and "The Carol Burnett Show" at Grandma and Granddaddy Allder's house. I watched "I Love Lucy" after school, I think it came on at 4 p.m. I'm sure we must have watched "The Brady Bunch" at some point, but I certainly don't have any memories of it.

Now that we're parents, we have to manage "screen time" - television (shows on DirecTV and Netflix, plus all the DVDs we have), the computer, the iPad, and the kids' iTouches. These things? They are always available. UGH!

During the school year, the kids' screen time is pretty limited. On many school days, they don't have any screen time at all. Other school days it's limited to 30 minutes. On weekends, things are a bit more free - they are religiously up before 7 a.m. because we've told them that's the earliest screen time can start. Depending on what we've got going on, sometimes they have an hour of screen time on weekend mornings, sometimes it stretches out to as long as 3 hours.

We haven't really caught them "cheating" the rules except maybe once, which is pretty surprising. Of course there may be many times we're not catching them (LOL). I imagine that's going to happen more frequently as time goes by.

Lately Reed is all about the Minecraft video game, it's pretty much the only screen time he wants to have. He is also very into listening to a couple of podcasts. He got very into one called "The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd" which is like an old-time radio show about time-traveling (includes some historic info too). It's about 8 minutes long and he blew through more than 700 episodes in probably a month's time. Then Tod downloaded another podcast for him, this one about Minecraft. It gives tips about playing the game mostly, I think. He's also super into watching YouTube videos, especially ones created in Minecraft where people play the games and then talk over them (don't ask me, I'm not a 10 year old boy!). As for that Nintendo 3DS he wanted for his birthday? Only gets it out occasionally.

Amy is probably most into getting lots of apps for her iTouch and Tod's iPad. She likes "maker" apps - making donuts, cakes, hot dogs (?), wedding makeup, dresses, etc. She still watches TV a bit, her favorites are "My Little Pony" and "Littlest Pet Shop" - which is great, but does cause her some trouble with other kids, who think those shows are for "babies". They make her happy, though, so we remind her that is the only thing that matters. She listens to Harry Potter books on her iTouch c o n s t a n t l y. She listens to them at bedtime and I swear she's got some parts memorized. She will sit and listen to HP though headphones while she draws or does her homework, in the car...pretty much whenever she can. It seems to relax her.

We wonder if we are managing their screen time right. I think they probably get more screen time than some other kids, less than some others....I guess that's about right. Parenting is all about doing the best you can, right?