Plugged In Summer

  So, I've had to take a grand plunge into the world of what many may call mainstream parenting.  I have a pinched nerve in my back which is affecting my right leg.  I hobble around and can't stand for very long.  I have a chair in the shower.  I can't stand up long enough to cook anything, so this means that the kids and I have to live on take out. 
      As most everyone knows though, take out does not equate healthy.  It definitely equals expensive though, except for McDonald's.  So, I suck it up and we eat a lot of McDonald's.  Granted, we also try to get salads from McDonald's.  I have had friends go shopping for me and pick up things like yogurts, ready to eat fruits, hummus and pita bread. 
       Another foray away from my ideals is the amount of tv the kids have been watching.  I had all of these glorious plans for our summer.  I have tickets for Sunken Gardens in St. Pete as well the The Florida Aquarium.  They are just sitting in the limbo of the computer just waiting for me to print them out.  I also had plans to go to the beach and to the parks in the evenings just to get the kids unplugged.  Well, if I can't drive and can barely walk, those things have proven to be impossible. So, Dora the Explorer to the rescue in our house these days.  Oh well, at least this situation is only temporary.  
            In the meantime, I do try to encourage non media activities as much as possible.  The older kids are working on their summer reading for school.  A lot of the shows that Liam watches are educational. He was just watching the civil war era movie, Gods and Generals, and he was looking at one of his civil war books. 
        Seneca worked on writing some of her phonics words yesterday. She also spends a good amount of time somersaulting and running through my mother's house.  She'll get to go to a mall in Tampa tonight with her awesome sitter.  I know, I'm raising a mall-chick, what can I say?  Well, we hardly ever go to the mall, even when my leg is good, so again, choose my battles.
    And she has spent many a time with me in my bed reading her phonics books, telling stories, playing I Spy, cutting and gluing at her table, coloring, and more.  So, she is not a drone all day long.
       Just before class started the other night, one of the young ladies was talking about how her friend has a 3 year old daughter and the little girl has these neat games on ipad to play.  I thought about how glad I am that my child will not have an ipad until she is much older.  Even, my teenage kids don't have an ipad.  So, while my five year old will be watching more cartoons than I would like, she still is free from the ipad craze. 
     The thing is, I know we will come out the other end of our plugged in summer just fine.