First of all, you have to know that we have not watched actual television, broadcast or cable, in our house for over five years. We shut it off the week after our military entered Iraq, back in March of 2003. Never turned it on again, except for space shuttle launches and landings, and approaching hurricanes. Besides that, we just watch videos that we rent through the mail from N*tflix.
So we decided early this year that we would break our TV fast for the Olympics. We are not sports fans by any stretch, but we both enjoy watching the Olympics. I had a chance to visit the venues in Lake Placid shortly before the 1980 Winter Games, and caught the Olympic bug at that time. So, I am always enthusiastic about the Olympics (although we didn't watch them at all in 2004 or 2006).
Anyway, Friday we watched the awesome opening ceremony all the way through until midnight, and our kids stayed up for the spectacle. For them, the spectacle wasn't simply the ceremony, but the whole "TV experience", not the least of which is the commercials. Not being used to TV, the children were perturbed by the frequent cutting over to commercials at high interest critical moments of programming. Now, DH and I have grown used to this over our lifetimes, but the kids found it quite aggravating, and they vocalized their opinion over this.
"OH NO! Another commercial!"
"We just saw this one!" (for P*blix supermarkets)
"Not again!!"
and my personal favorite: "ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!"
Well, the frequent reoccurrence of about 20 or so commercials since Friday evening has continued to be a continual joke amongst our family. The beginning of the commercials are now met by comments like
"Oh I know this one!", (they are such TV experts already, since Friday)
or
"This is funny!"
among cackles and shrieks of delight, especially for the commercial for Kr*ft Macaroni and Cheese Cr*ckers when the cheese geyser erupts under the unsuspecting child. Over and over again. Giggle, giggle, laugh, laugh.
It is kind of funny. Not the commercials, but my childrens' experience / reaction to them.
When the parade of athletes was going on, this was a neat review of the Geography Songs CD that we listened to last winter. Some of the Pacific island countries completely stumped us. It was very disturbing to see that Taiwan was not permitted to carry their own flag. The kids got excited to see athletes from the countries of their birth. My son eagerly awaited the contingent from Viet Nam. They sent about 15 athletes, and the commentator mentioned that although the Vietnamese hadn't really been winners of Olympic medals in the past, they were a force to be reckoned with in the Math Olympics! We were happy to jump all over that fact, as Math is not my DS' favorite subject.
My daughter was happy to see the athletes from South Korea, some 350 strong. She was full of grins, too, when the young Mr. Park won a swimming gold medal for South Korea.
An aside: what is it with beach volleyball, anyway? It seems that they spend half the time just showing that! (Don't answer that question, I think I can guess..)
So, my kids have gotten the idea to stick U.S. flags around the room on dowels, or to hold them and wave them when the USA is winning or getting a medal, and then they lower them to half mast when the USA isn't doing so good. Where do they get these ideas?
They are also being exposed to new terms, like vaulting, uneven parallel bars, balance beam, etc. 'Tis a shame; we non-athletic parents haven't exposed them to much of this stuff.
How great is the potential for us to become TV-holics? Take yesterday afternoon, for instance. Mid-afternoon found me sitting in the recliner feeling very lazy, watching swimming races. This is such an unusual scene in our house. DH got bored with this and disappeared outside to do something with the tractor. Turned out he sharpened the Bush Hog blades. My son got bored, too, and went outside to play. My daughter, who takes to TV more readily than her brother, hung around a little bit, and then decided to go outside to join her brother. This left me, sitting drowsily in the chair, feeling quite brain dead and extremely lazy. It reminded me far too much of days past when I was growing up with my parents. And part of me said - are you crazy? Don't you feel guilty? Look at you, sitting like a lazy lump in your chair while these incredible swimmers are slicing through water! What are you doing!!?? And at that point, I got up, got dressed in my swimsuit and did laps in my pool. It sure felt good to move. That led into dinner, violin practice, and the entire evening ritual. We didn't watch the Olympics again until 9 p.m.
I guess our family isn't cut out for daytime TV, not even on the weekends. Nevertheless, we have a lot of exciting evening viewing of the Olympics to look forward to, and it is double the fun with our kids.
NEWS FLASH: The UPS truck is here delivering our new homeschool room table. Gotta go!
So we decided early this year that we would break our TV fast for the Olympics. We are not sports fans by any stretch, but we both enjoy watching the Olympics. I had a chance to visit the venues in Lake Placid shortly before the 1980 Winter Games, and caught the Olympic bug at that time. So, I am always enthusiastic about the Olympics (although we didn't watch them at all in 2004 or 2006).
Anyway, Friday we watched the awesome opening ceremony all the way through until midnight, and our kids stayed up for the spectacle. For them, the spectacle wasn't simply the ceremony, but the whole "TV experience", not the least of which is the commercials. Not being used to TV, the children were perturbed by the frequent cutting over to commercials at high interest critical moments of programming. Now, DH and I have grown used to this over our lifetimes, but the kids found it quite aggravating, and they vocalized their opinion over this.
"OH NO! Another commercial!"
"We just saw this one!" (for P*blix supermarkets)
"Not again!!"
and my personal favorite: "ARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!"
Well, the frequent reoccurrence of about 20 or so commercials since Friday evening has continued to be a continual joke amongst our family. The beginning of the commercials are now met by comments like
"Oh I know this one!", (they are such TV experts already, since Friday)
or
"This is funny!"
among cackles and shrieks of delight, especially for the commercial for Kr*ft Macaroni and Cheese Cr*ckers when the cheese geyser erupts under the unsuspecting child. Over and over again. Giggle, giggle, laugh, laugh.
It is kind of funny. Not the commercials, but my childrens' experience / reaction to them.
When the parade of athletes was going on, this was a neat review of the Geography Songs CD that we listened to last winter. Some of the Pacific island countries completely stumped us. It was very disturbing to see that Taiwan was not permitted to carry their own flag. The kids got excited to see athletes from the countries of their birth. My son eagerly awaited the contingent from Viet Nam. They sent about 15 athletes, and the commentator mentioned that although the Vietnamese hadn't really been winners of Olympic medals in the past, they were a force to be reckoned with in the Math Olympics! We were happy to jump all over that fact, as Math is not my DS' favorite subject.
My daughter was happy to see the athletes from South Korea, some 350 strong. She was full of grins, too, when the young Mr. Park won a swimming gold medal for South Korea.
An aside: what is it with beach volleyball, anyway? It seems that they spend half the time just showing that! (Don't answer that question, I think I can guess..)
So, my kids have gotten the idea to stick U.S. flags around the room on dowels, or to hold them and wave them when the USA is winning or getting a medal, and then they lower them to half mast when the USA isn't doing so good. Where do they get these ideas?
They are also being exposed to new terms, like vaulting, uneven parallel bars, balance beam, etc. 'Tis a shame; we non-athletic parents haven't exposed them to much of this stuff.
How great is the potential for us to become TV-holics? Take yesterday afternoon, for instance. Mid-afternoon found me sitting in the recliner feeling very lazy, watching swimming races. This is such an unusual scene in our house. DH got bored with this and disappeared outside to do something with the tractor. Turned out he sharpened the Bush Hog blades. My son got bored, too, and went outside to play. My daughter, who takes to TV more readily than her brother, hung around a little bit, and then decided to go outside to join her brother. This left me, sitting drowsily in the chair, feeling quite brain dead and extremely lazy. It reminded me far too much of days past when I was growing up with my parents. And part of me said - are you crazy? Don't you feel guilty? Look at you, sitting like a lazy lump in your chair while these incredible swimmers are slicing through water! What are you doing!!?? And at that point, I got up, got dressed in my swimsuit and did laps in my pool. It sure felt good to move. That led into dinner, violin practice, and the entire evening ritual. We didn't watch the Olympics again until 9 p.m.
I guess our family isn't cut out for daytime TV, not even on the weekends. Nevertheless, we have a lot of exciting evening viewing of the Olympics to look forward to, and it is double the fun with our kids.
NEWS FLASH: The UPS truck is here delivering our new homeschool room table. Gotta go!
4 comments:
Oooh! The new table is exciting! My little boys watched a couple of episdes of that thing on NBC with Hulk Hogan, I think it was called American Gladiators. But without their big brothers, they just aren't interested. It's been 58 degrees and pouring all day, so the boys and their dog have been curled up with books all day. That's a good day, from Mom's perspective anyway!
We have TV but don't generally watch on the weekdays and daytime viewing, even on weekends, is a rarity. I do want to make a point of watching some of the Olympics but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe this evening...
And to answer your questions about Suzuki Institute - ours is about 4.5 hours away from us. It's well worth the drive; in fact, I'd drive twice the distance to get there. I encourage you to try to get to one next year. It makes a great family vacation and the kids get so much out of it.
As you read in my post, we don't watch much TV either. (Esp me.) Although since we've had cable (b/c we need it for internet and to add TV is like 50 cents/mo more!), we do watch stuff like Discovery channel from time to time. Really, though, aside from Olympics season, I wouldn't object to a 5-year television fast!
I'm not watching Olympics during the day, either. I wouldn't get anything done if they were on. Today, tho, my son turned it on for a while, just in time for me to see one of those cool Olympic moments I love! A kayaker from Togo won what my son said is the first medal ever for his country. Yay!!!
How fun for your kids to see the athletes from their native lands. I don't think I remember ever seeing a Vietnamese athlete in any Olympics; course my memory isn't what it once was, either! I also saw the Korean take 2nd in the swimming race you mentioned. When winter Olympics comes around you'll have to watch again; the speedskating venues (esp short track) are full of South Koreans and they usually do very well.
As for the quote you mentioned-- no idea.
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