Days 5 & 6

Day 5:
What I learned: This afternoon as I dried my hair & got ready for the annual Christmas dinner that evening for our church's women's group, I felt like listening to some Christmas music, so I turned on my Christmas music on my phone to listen to while I got ready.  And earlier in the week I had used my phone to play an audiobook that the boys & I listened to while we drove to their piano studio.  So I updated the limits of my little experiment to allow for using the phone to listen to music, or to listen to an audiobook in the car.
What we did: Isaac got home from school first and he sat down to read a book.  I sat down next to him and asked him what he was reading, and he showed me the book in a series of kids historical fiction books about children who lived through natural disasters or wars.  He was reading one called I Survived the Nazi Invasion.  Isaac's 10, and I wondered how much he understood about this.  I asked him if he knew who the Nazis were, and he told me he had learned at school that they were the people who invaded in Europe and made Jewish people move to work camps or killed them.  He said they are reading Number the Stars aloud in his class.  I told him that had been a book I really liked as a child.  We talked for a few minutes about the Holocaust and how it made us feel, and then I let him go back to reading.  I spent some time getting ready for a church dinner that night.  And then I had a talk with Kolby about his school work.

Day 6:
What I learned: It's easy to forget.  Even though I'm trying to follow some pretty strict guidelines for this technology experiment, it's still really easy to forget.  Like when Michael called and we chatted about a class we were considering signing the boys up for.  Then when I got off the phone I just automatically started searching online for details about the class, before I caught myself and put the phone away.  I'm so used to using the phone to look up information about whatever comes to mind right when I think of it.  So part of this experiment is training myself to get used to something different.
What we did: After school the boys & I walked up the street to our neighbor's house where I dropped off the three oldest boys for a scout campout.  Then Isaac & Courtland & I walked with our dogs up to the little dog park up the street.  We stayed for a while and let Berkley run and get her energy out.  Then when we came home I took the boys and we drove around the neighborhood for a little while looking at Christmas lights, and stopped to visit my parents for a bit before coming home.