Tv Turnoff Week

It's earth day, tv turnoff week, and Holy Tuesday for us. DD9 has a baseball game and at the risk of sounding like a bad parent, I really hope it rains like it's threatening to.

I used to be in charge of promoting tv turnoff week at our elementary school. I came up with the idea of distributing lengths of caution tape to students to put on their tvs. I see someone is still passing those out. Wonder how many families actually put those on their tvs? Turning off the tv for a week isn't hard for our family since we discontinued our cable subscription years ago. Without cable we get no tv reception around here. But frankly, once George Clooney left E.R., I didn't see the point of even owning a tv. The little beauty pictured is the only set in the house, and is used to watch occasional dvds and play on the Wii. The downside of course, is that my kids read like maniacs and do really well in school. We have to go to the library a lot, darn it.

Last night as I was clearing the dishes I heard the phrase every parent dreads more than any other. . ."mommy, I threw up!" Gaaaaa! If ever there's a time when I hate the parenting job, vomit-cleanup is that time. Figures we had split pea soup for dinner too. "Hello Linda Blair!" I donned the gloves and grabbed the cleaning supplies and expected the worst. Thankfully it was hardly a mess at all. Nothing like the great barf of 2003.

Ah yes, the barf of 2003. The barf to end all barfs. When you awaken in the middle of the night and find yourself about to vomit in bed, what would you do? Lean over the side of the bed? Of course you would, anybody would. Now picture that you were on the top bunk at the time. The perpetrator nailed the floor, the walls, the desk, and her little sister beneath her. Words cannot describe the scene. Hazmat teams would have shuddered at the sight. My husband, the quick thinker, turned right around and went back to bed, leaving me to launch a rescue of the innocent below and the barfer above. It was impressive, that barf. I made her a certificate and filed it in the family awards notebook.

In honor of earth day, let's all click on that link on the left and save a little piece of rainforest. It's free.