This week we began a monitor-free policy for Monday evenings. I had proposed keeping away from all computers and tvs etc one night a week in favor of family time and non-electronic amusements, here on forward. (Sort of a "Kill your TV, Lite".) David immediately agreed. On Sunday I reminded him we couldn't turn to tv or check emails to occupy ourselves the following night, and he said he knew, he was ready. He then indicated that I was the one who might not be able to forgo a bit of email and facebook monitoring, but I assured him this would be no hardship for me. He raised a skeptical brow.
Fast forward to Monday...
Week 1
David calls from work shortly after lunch. It's deader than a doornail there (this being Thanksgiving week) and he's heading home early. When he arrives he puts the laptop out, which I eye suspiciously. He still has work to do. He has a few hours before evening starts, so I let it go. Clock ticks by, we're both busy with baby, chores, making dinner.
The meal is finished and cleaned up. David gets cranky, says he has work he needed to do, that he'll have to do it after I go to bed (apparently this is acceptable to him as it is after family time). Not so fast, I tell him. "You agreed." He's the one who bathes Adam and puts him to sleep, so his time upstairs raises no alarms until it's about 8pm and I realize I've not heard from David in a while, though I notice the laptops are all downstairs. I figure he is curling up with his Economist. Curious, I go up to check and find him reaching to turn out the light and go to bed. Not to read, but to sleep. At 8:15. "But I'm tired." I would have teased him mercilessly if he didn't really look tired. (I felt his pain; we'd had a very long week prior.)
I ask him to keep me company downstairs while I bake some bread, which he does. He curls up on the sofa under several layers of blankets and reads the book I'd gotten for him from the library. I braided a beautiful loaf of bread and waited for it to bake. When we eventually both settled in for sleep, it was with a much quieter mind than I've felt for some time. I call the night a success.
Check in next week for the Monitor-free Monday, Week 2 report.
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