Couch Time

As we are going through the Growing Kids God's Way class we are instituting new principles around our home. One of the new principles is the ever so famous "Couch Time." The principle behind this is for the children in our home to have a visual sense of our togetherness. We are supposed to sit together for about 15 min talking, gazing into each others eyes, and generally having that all important uninterrupted mommy and daddy time. How is it going? Pretty good...so far... Purely by accident we ended up doing our couch time in the down stairs living room, away from the temptations of the kitchen, phone and computer which helped keep the kids grounded and interested in their toys and books. We talked to Tage and Simon about including Ben (our 2yr old who gets great joy out of demolition) in the construction of the Lego City prior to starting our time together which helped keep the older two boys interested in helping Ben rather than them spending the entire time trying to keep him away. He was so delighted to be included in their play he was quite a little gem for them! Violet sat on the opposite couch across from us and read a stack of books not budging from her concentration. We talked about our plans for the week, Brant's job, our budget plans, meal plans etc....we actually covered a lot of ground in that 15 min! We were at it again tonight, even after a long day of school and evening choirs we managed to fit it in. I like this little activity and love that we have an excuse to spend 15 min together, at home, while the kids are awake, uninterrupted!