“Back to Reality To Do List” (for the taxi, planes and airports tomorrow):

Finalize Happiness Project. Plan dinner with Mom. Buy bubble bath. Lice going around school? Verify life insurance doubled for plane. Finalize living will. Ask Beauty about report card. Confirm carpool for Thursday. Snow tires? Buy new clear lip-gloss advertised in Glamour. Give Hubby his to do list for unpacking at home. Try new orange smoothies at Tim Horton’s. Make plan for Bear to gain 5 lbs! Call surgeon with update on Bear. Take a nap. Finish book.  Figure out how to be a better cook. Buy a new book. Make a list of next 30 days of meals. Deal with infected toe. Cancel tutoring . Prepare for parent teacher meetings. Do something about chipped nail polish! Text Friends. Read all my emails from work and respond. Read personal email and respond. Call kids and remind them to tidy house. Be more playful. Tell kids to jump in my bed at 6am in morning. Book mammogram! Buy mints. Jane annoyed with me? Learn basics of Spanish to be able  to write to Latin colleagues. Plan Diversity and Inclusion luncheon. Show proofs of love more often. Figure out why I am not invited to Miami. Make healthy snack list. Put exercise in blackberry. Figure out basics of I-Phones. Read camera instructions.  Be a more attentive friend. Brush and floss teeth. Buy bronzer to make tan last. Figure out how to get Bear in Sport Etudes! Figure out more details on how to trust a process. Write thank you card for condo. Pick up extra souvenirs for kids. Beauty -hair more layered?  Chase height recorded in medical book?  Figure out when to sleep if plane arriving at 1am and have to get up and hang out with kids and catch up on work at 6am? Choose flattering outfit that will show off tan for work on Thursday. Find scale at airport and get weighed to assess damage of 2 week vacation. Call Chiro. Order meds. Write high school and tell them how unfair it is that Bear could not audition for sports program! Start a petition against the school if they won’t listen! Tell my Guy how much I love him. Buy another book. Call my Mom. Hair darker or lighter in 6 weeks? Plan how to win the HR Award in 2012. Plan how to be in charge of change management at work. Create title of my book. Trust the Process! Start writing book.  Did vaccine hurt-ask Beauty? Tell kids their English written is horrible. Tell kids the movie Bad Teachers should be R rated and they are in serious trouble for renting it on ITunes. Figure out how important passing math is to future of education. Buy tampons.  Plan for alcohol withdrawal for hubby upon vacation return. Picketing in front of a high school legal in Quebec? Plan how to get back on vacation as soon as possible. Sleep?

Me blog…why????

(Introducing my first guest blogger! My husband. Sometimes in life...I just have to sit back and laugh (even if it's at myself I guess). I am thrilled at least that he wrote this creative, funny and hilarious blog -it's a good creative outlet. What it has taught me is " don't touch masterpieces of others-they are perfect as they are".

Happy Reading! Hope my next guest poster is as sweet and creative as my husband when they  highjack my blog).

Here I am on vacation, having the best time of my life, enjoying every single moment as if it was the last moment ever, basking in the sun, listening to the waves crashing on the beach, feeling the wind on my skin, looking at all the beauty around me (if any guys out there are reading this, you know what I mean…!), enjoying a cold beer while reading my  third  novel this week, eating the best food ever, snacking on honey roasted peanuts and Lays BBQ chips, walking for hours on the beach with one mission: looking for the perfect shell,  thinking of my 6 o’clock martini (shaken not stirred), thinking of the next big decision I have to make today (chips or peanuts?), rekindling my near death experience on the sail of my life.

And then it hits me in the face as if I had just been sentenced to life: my Better Half tells me ‘’you have to write a blog tonight!!!!!’’  A what?  A blog! What the hell I am supposed to write about?  I barely speak to anyone all day (by choice), I only listen to my Better Half talk all day (not by choice!) about all her lists, projects, plans, future, past, present, ideas, money, food, friends, family, vacations, renovations, kids education, money, wills, other vacations, family relationships, Holidays, meals, food, exercise, kids discipline, pluck-a-buck, no more pluck-a-buck, zones, chores, allowance, gifts, order in the house, chaos in our lives and the lists to achieve it all, and the lists to get there, and the lists to list what we need to list to get there, and the lists to make our life better, and the making of the master list of lists to make our life simpler. Oh boy, do I ever need a vacation now!

So what am I supposed to ‘’Blog’’ about (if I only knew what a blog is supposed to be in the first place). So anyway, here I am, probably going to be in the biggest fight ever with my Better Half for the content of this first actual blog (whatever that is).  But you know what, I am actually enjoying this. What an outlet! It’s fun to just write and know that maybe, maybe someone out there can relate to it. This is like couples therapy except much, much cheaper!!!

So, for all you blogging widowers out there (it used to be golf widows but times are a changing!!), this one was for you guys!

Cheers!

PS. My Better Half just read my first blog before posting it and guess what? We are in a big fight! She doesn’t understand that boys are boys! Oh well! But, you know what, she is the best Better Half anyone one can dream of! She is always one step ahead of anything that can harm our family life. She is the best, the one that makes all this worth while and especially the only one that makes this beach the most  beautiful one in the world!

Tossing your Cookies and Dreams

Sometimes in life….what you thought might have been your dreams..end up just being a really great day in the sun.

My Protector and I have spent many years fantasizing, discussing and  planning two things in our future, and both involve huge sailboats. One is a trip with maybe 3 other of our couple friends on a Greek Sailing cruise. The other is after we retire to own a large yacht, move to Turks and Caicos and sail our life away and charge customers a mint  to let us take them out on the gorgeous seas.

Although we are usually pretty good planners, somehow I am not sure that Hubby and I thought this one out too much. We may have been missing some very important and critical elements in realizing our dreams.

It may have been a good idea to actually try going on a a big sailboat for a few hours before committing our futures to them??

We realized today Hobbie Cats which we have both sailed our entire lives are very very different than 47 foot yachts.

So today we had probably one of the most fabulous days of our lives….but trust me we felt  good our feet are back on land. Today was AMAZING but believe me I could not commit to this for a lifetime.

It all started out when I told my husband on Day 6 of our vacation that I was starting to feel “restless”.

This always scares him a bit since he never knows what exactly that means since once I get in these moods sometimes they tend to last a long while. So I asked him to book us something extravagant. Since I won an award at work recently that came with money, I decided that I wanted to use it to charter a 47 foot yacht for a half day and sail the turquoise seas. We have wanted to do this forever but never gave in to the incredible expense. I justified it this time with my award and with the fact that I have not consumed alcohol on the trip which saves us tons and tons of money seeing that everyone else around me drink like fish while I have my diet iced tea from the local grocery store in a plastic cup nonetheless.

So my Guy books us the yacht. He is excited as it has been his dream forever.

Yesterday at our hotel, he happens to bump into the Captain’s Girlfriend who also happens to be a sales person at the condos we are staying at at the hotel. They realized “what an amazing coincidence it is that they have been corresponding all week over email trying to book the yacht and there they bump into eachother”!! How sweet!!!!! Adorable.

So she confirms to my Hubby that she is going to join us on the sail since she seemed to get along so well with my husband. Let’s make a day of it-all together! Yay!

Well there goes my beach bum au natural look. I needed to get into shape for this outing. I mean maybe my husband would fall in love with this girl who is not even a wife yet since she owns a yacht. This is his dream right? Maybe he will want to get a head start with this lady?

So I got up an hour early and actually did my hair. Blow-dried it, styled it, curled it. I  put on mascara and everything and brought three outfits for the boat. One of my signatures for people who know me well is to change outfits often. I decided that my three cutest outfits would be most appropriate for this sail. I even had two changes of jewelry and sunglasses. The stakes were high-I needed amunitions.

So there we board our yacht at 9:30am this morning looking like our best versions of ourselves, all stylish and fancy and the Girlfriend is the sweetest and most down to earth thing ever. She seemed to have way more interest in me than my Hubby..so I breathed a sigh of relief and took off the tight choker of beads around my neck. How liberating!

So of course being the water lovers we are Hubby and I set up in the front of the boat right on the bow with soft and billowy cushions. The Captain and Girlfriend seemed a bit surprised by our sense of adventure-but my gosh-we have been on boats all our lives! Why would we want to sit on the little benches in the back when we could be up front? We are ONE with water remember? A bunch of mermaids.

Well let me tell you for the next two hours………we were held hostage up there in the bow. The ocean was so rough that we were thrown side to side, water splashing in our faces, me almost falling off the yacht three or four times, salt water in our mouths we were almost choking, three bruised toes from being thrown around so much, sunscreen dripping down our faces with no towel to wipe our eyes. It was ludicrous!!! Scary!

Why did we not crawl back to the back….because we could not endanger our lives to let go for one single second! And no one came to get us or save us! At one point we thought that they had put the boat on auto sail or something and were in the cabin doing the nasty together!

We could not even turn our heads back to see if they were still there 42 feet away as it was to dangerous  to look the other way!

But…we LOVED every single minute. We love adventures. We have never laughed so hard in our lives. We were crying (salt tears) and peeing our pants (salt pee) we were laughing so hard. We thought of every single friend we had up there on the bow and poked  fun at how we  thought they might "enjoy" this cruise themselves. We kept saying can you imagine if so and so were here on this boat?????????? They would be dying! Can you imagine so and so-she would be furious! Can you imagine so and so-he would be barfing! We did this for what seems like hours this same crazy conversation and we laughed.

At first we were worried we might lose our sunglasses overboard. So we laughed. Then we realized we might lose the two pillows. Then we realized we were likely to fall over ourselves-and we cracked up. We especially laughed when we realized there were no life preservers anywhere. Hubby imagined calling home and telling my Mom” You know your daughter’s infected toe you were worried about well don’t worry it’s all fine now at the bottom of the ocean attached to her body! HAHAHA!

Finally the Girlfriend came up for sail from the cabin and asked us if we were “all right up there on the bow” HAHAH. She came and saved us!

Did I mention how we looked by this point?  Two wet rats, soaked top to bottom, hair stuck to our faces, my mascara running, and spit all over our clothes.

Time for pictures now-yay!!!!!

So we went back to the stern with her and Captain and my Protector felt sick and almost tossed his cookies! They went to take pictures of us and he is about to throw up all over the poor people. So he had to quickly excuse himself and go back to the bow all by himself poor Guy. He cam back and had some Gravol and some lime soda and was pretty quiet for a while.

I think that ended our dreams somehow of the future. We decided that if we went on a  2 week Greek Cruise with friends we would all never speak to each other again. We decided that if we retired and spent our days on the ocean sailing….we might be in a constant state of giggles and sea sickness. I am thinking that the big Global Pharma company I work for might just have to keep me for a while. I am not retiring anytime soon thank you very much!

The second half of the sail was a lot calmer and better and was actually the most incredible experience, We went swimming in the reefs off the boat, ate a bunch of delicious snacks, hung out with Captain an Girlfriend who were so sweet actually and sailed back home downwind which is a different world.  My husband sailed the boat himself for a good amount of time. Back on the bow we were actually able to fall asleep this time and not fall of the side of the boat,

So we loved it (half of it anyways) but we realized that your dreams can’t be half they have to be the whole thing right? My Guy and I realized we are just not the type to do anything half way. Besides just watching the Captain maneuver the sails  exhausted us.

So we left that magnificent sail today…kind of changing directions. We were so happy that we did it and will do it again the next trip for sure, but we realized that we need to find a serious new retirement hobby for the future.

I guess we also realized our limitations as we always thought we feared nothing when it came to nature and especially water. Hanging out with Mother Nature today made us feel vulnerable and I feel blessed to be alive and in one piece.

One thing we found out for sure today…is that we have FUN together. I don’t think anyone in the world would have found our jokes very funny  (especially all our friends!)but we had a grand old time together.

I realized that I don’t need to have nice hair or many, many outfits to be loved. My husband loved me more with spit and full of pee than with my Gucci bag and Prada sunglasses and I loved every soaked, spit up on, smelly part of him too. We are made to be together.

Sailing will always be part of our life but it won’t be our life as we thought it might. Changing Directions we are…it’s all a heck of a fun journey.

(Oh ya..and they liked us so much that they asked us to be part of a commercial for the hotel and the boat tomorrow. We are going to be TV stars! Guess I better get out the blow dryer and mascara againJ)

FAQs -How to get a child 2-5 yrs old to……..

Clean up their rooms?

Sing with them “Clean Up..Clean Up..Everybody does their share” smile a lot-act really cheerful and happy and pleased when they finish.  Do this every night after dinner and hopefully by the time they are older they will do a natural “evening tidy” without you having to sing.

Make them get into their car seats if they are screaming and wailing?

Tell them that you are going to close the door of the car and stand right outside of it at the front of the car and you will stay there and ignore them until they are calm and you are able to come back and put the seatbelt on. Ignore them and make no eye contact. When they are calm, return with a smile on your face and thank them for their gracious and cooperative behavior.

Stop hitting another child or you?

Do not allow this and stop this behavior in its tracks. Tell them "NO" firmly and take their hands away from the victim. If it happens again immediate time out or separation to ensure that the message is “this is not tolerated in our home”. If it continues beyond the first time out…..privileges such as story time, long tuck ins  etc need to be withdrawn. Do not allow hitting-as it turns into a much bigger problem later on. I remember one therapist saying that this is one of the few behaviors of childhood that demands that the parent give the child “the cold shoulder” for a while, to ensure that the child knows this is not to be tolerated under any circumstance.

Go to bed without a fuss?

Have a strict routine before bedtime and plenty of cuddles, stories and pleasant moments. However separate all of these rituals from falling asleep and ensure that younger children have the capability of falling asleep on their own without any type of sleep association that are created such as feeding, bottles, pacifiers, watching TV etc… Even if it takes days of crying to get your child to be able to fall asleep without help it is a worthwhile task.

Did you know that over 40% of the adult male population have sleeping issues as adults and strong sleep associations left over from childhood? (Feber, 2000) These men  and women  need to be listening to music, TV or any sound at all to be able to go to sleep mostly because this was created and enabled in early childhood. My husband knows a couple that go to bed each night with a blow-dryer in their bed for the “white noise”. This is not a joke!

Do all the rocking, cuddling, whispering, feeding and anything else at night you wish,  but make sure it is well before the child is expected to go to sleep and disassociate it from a sleeping aid. Remember all of these comforting rituals are awesome and fun and great-but if they comfort you (and probably your child short term) it is more important to think of the lack of comfort this will cause  your child longer term.

Have good self-esteem?

Model it yourself mainly. Also trust your child and encourage autonomy. Let them do things on their own and praise them when they do. Let them fall and make mistakes and don’t make a huge fuss about it and help them get right back up and try again. Encourage them to enjoy people around them and to get to know them.

(I am going to ask my dear friend my Soulkeeper to do a guest post soon on my blog for the 0-5 crowd. I have never met a more calm, confident and capable mommy and her 3 yr  old is the most polite, sweet, capable and confident young lady I have seen in a long while. I am so impressed by Soul keeper’s and her Hubby’s parenting style so much that I am constantly asking them advice about my older kids even though their two little ones are 3yrs  and 1yr. Helps they both have tons of social work experience with teens….sometimes when I don’t know how to handle my kids I seriously consider sending them to their home for a week. They would come back all shiny and new I kid you not! Soulkeeper  Summer Camp..hmmm catchy.

What to do When……

Your child had emergency surgery on the day of his important and elite and grueling physically sports exam for his entrance into Sports Etude at the higschool he was accepted at that affects largely the next 5 yrs of his life and that he deserves more than anything to gain entrance into?  When it was the most unfortunate, unlucky and depressing fact that he had the 1 in a million luck to be rushed to the hospital during the very minutes that this exam took place?  When you are dealing with a school, although compassionate by words, is like dealing with what feels like the Olympic Games judges who get that Roger Federer missed the big match because he was ill-but can he pretty please have a second chance because he is really sad and upset and it is not fair????  This is what we are up against.

So do you sit there and pull your hair out and stress and not sleep at night and whine and complain to every single generous and kind friend, colleague and family member who asks about this situation daily?

No. You use your new approach.

You never give up (as usual). You relentlessly advocate for your son who you know deserves this spot as he is a top athlete and a true team leader,  and then you sit back and trust the process.

It was trust the process right? Trust it? So sit back and let it play out after you have done everything you possibly can that is in your power? Just want to make absolutely sure I get this new approach….

And along the way-you breathe too right?  And try to relax about it all?

Ok..breathing..trying to stay calm. Trusting.  I think I get it.

Bikini Blues

I remember a comment a good friend of mine made to me a number of years back-the comment stuck in my mind. She said that she observed that often I shared with my friends my issues, or problems and anxieties after they occurred rather than during the process. She said that she had the feeling that by the time I shared them, they were mostly often resolved.

She was bang on. And this feedback really made me think….I remember at the time thinking “How could I do it differently…just talk aloud to my friends, be vulnerable and talk about issues without having a perspective of my own yet….I don’t know if I could do this?”

Childhood Wonder ,though knew me well, she is one of my oldest and dearest friends…she knew pretty much every angle of my younger life. And if she said that this is what I ought to try, I knew I had to listen.

So slowly over the years, I have grown into this feedback. And you know what-it feels awesome.

I can now often be found texting one of my BFF’s and complaining about my marriage, sitting in the back of a car driving back from an offsite and asking my boss and collegue if they feel as scared to go home to their kids as I do, asking friends to take me out to dinner and help me feel ok that one or another of my kids’ lives seem to be falling apart at the seams. This divulging  is very liberating indeed!

And I don’t feel badly about it, or apologize for my weaknesses, or go back and retext my BFF and say” you know all those nasty things I said about my hubby yesterday-well today I love him again” I just let it be..and let life go on. And let the ones around me who love me make their own judgments or withhold judgments. I lean on them….and it feels so sweet.

I even cried over the phone for a whole hour a few months ago to my Mom. And whined and whined about my life (mostly about Halloween!). It felt damn good.

So in the context of opening up my heart and sharing some information on stuff I am working on I will also extend this to my blog readers. I noticed that the two areas that I have really declared I was struggling in, in both areas I have made tremendous and incredible strides and it makes me wonder if just by the simple declaration it provides accountability for me? I am a very results driven person-so I would imagine that once I publically come out with something I feel bound to it.

The Coming Compete with Capability post where I declare to set free some of beliefs about the capability of my children has been something I have struggled with for years and years. Since that post…I have come a looooooooooooooooong way let me tell you. And so have those children. In the areas that I was most bothered by and that kept me awake all night (which I will not divulge due to confidentially of my children and their privacy) I can tell you that this child has completely altered in this area….over months…but I think a large part of it has been me finally coming complete with believing that he/she will succeed without my help. Or fail. And being truly ok with either outcome. Liberating someone from constant fret and anxiety seems to have some very positive effects.

Well my area that I would like to tackle now that is part of my new Happiness Project that I nailed done on this trip. It is overall Wellness. So I have decided to bring my blog readers into this process with me and will periodically posts on how I am doing and where I am at.

I know this sounds crazy and weird but honestly my anxieties around wellness and body image seemed to have literally started the day I turned 40 (7 weeks ago)

 I kid you not-I went to bed a happy girl and woke up fatter! I know. I  don't know how could that be but it is the truth and now it is time to fix this.

I have never really fretted about my body before turning 40. Maybe I should have but I did not most days of the week. I was never as an adult considered a thin person, but I was never (what I considered anyways) a bigger person either. I always saw myself as a voluptuous girl with curves for the most part in the right places. Lucky for me my more voluptuous parts were on my top part and bottom part with a mainly a  trim belly and waist in between. So even though I was very far from skinny it all kind of worked itself out.

As my doctor tells me «very curvy and  accurately and attractively proportioned-you are blessed”

So although over the years of course like anyone else my weight has fluctuated since having three kids in 4 yrs. time-I had my  shares with a diet or two-or  mini breakdowns around body image, for the most part I was happy with what I saw-or at least “somewhat content” would be a better description. And from the front of me that is-from the back in my stupid bathroom mirrors-that is another ballgame all together.

Lucky for me over the years I have never cared much about weight or numbers or actual measurements. My  success barometer has always been twofold : “ Look and feel good in your clothes and look forward to putting them on every morning and look and forward to taking them off every night”(if you know what I mean?)(apologies Chase and Bear if you are reading this!!!) Oh ya and I have always wanted to be able to feel that I look attractive in a bikini. Not a teeny bikini, just a regular two piece bathing suit.

So until about 7 week’s ago-all of this sorta worked for me.  However suddenly as I went to bed one night 39 yrs. old and woke of 40 yrs. old everything seemed to just shift overnight!!! What happened??? Crap!!!!!

Maybe the dumb document of “Know your Numbers” from work that I got didn’t help matters either…I mean isn’t ignorance bliss? And to believe that I was in charge of the project too-imagine how many other blissfully happy colleagues I may have depressed when they received their own documents? I mean why do I need to know exactly how my waistline measures up to the other 40 yrs. old in the world? And of course as luck would have it,  I had to be one day less of forty the day I took the test so  I got compared to the 35-39 yrs old group instead of my 40 and older peers!!!!. Depressing  enough I would wake up the next morning with unwanted fat isn’t that enough cruelty!!!!!!!

So yes intellectually  I know that document was a good idea and I know that it was necessary and I know that it was good for all us blissfully happy but ignorant employees to take charge of their health….but I still hated the process of getting measured at work by a skinny and beautiful and young looking nurse who was sixteen it appeared.

(Maybe when I get back home I will pull out that document from the bottom of my trashcan and read it thouroughly. Maybe.)

So anyways the good news is is that since that fretful morning of turning 40, where bumps in my body seemed to re- distrusted to less attractive places and my belly seemed to be not as flat anymore-I still can save myself! Yippe! It’s not too late. I figure I am about 10 lbs. away and maybe two or three unwanted angles way from my once confident self. Success is not far away. Hallelujah!!!!

This may not seem to be much of a stretch goal to many-but it would be fine as far as I am concerned. Besides judging my body imagine on clothes( and lack of them) I have also decided early on in life that for me I need to find that balance and perfect weight which for me my definition is as follows:

Try to look as good as possible in clothes and without clothes+ try to eat as many yummy things as possible and not limit any of them try not to kill and bore yourself with strenuous exercise.

So my 10 lbs. might be someone else’s 20 lbs, but I follow my personal equation.

So up until now I have managed to pretty much eat what I want (with some tricks along the way over the years such as giving my hunger a number, eating part of my plate, eating cereal some nights for dinner to my mother’s horror and a whole bunch of other quirky thing I do around food to not indulge too, too much). I have always exercised but very moderately and sometimes inconsitently and don’t throw myself into it fully. I do it mostly for the pleasure and because it makes me feel good and more confident and strong.

Well looks like this might have to change! Gosh take me back a decade pleeeeeeese??????????

Looks like my equation might need to be altered and look something like this:

Get back to looking and feeling good in and out  my clothes and bikinis. Make some big adjustments in my diet and workout 5 days a week.

I have spent time this week in my Happiness Project figuring out how to do this. And I am pretty excited actually believe it or not. I am looking forward to taking on a healthier lifestyle and getting into the type of shape that when I climb a bunch of stairs at a spa I am not exhausted at the top.

Sharing this with all of you is empowering already. Makes me feel a bit exposed I might add because I have always prided myself on having a very positive body image despite being a curvy girl…but as Childhood Wonder told me that day it’s also important for my sanity to include others on my journey. What I have learnt is that by including others…we learn more about ourselves. And ultimately we just have a heck of a lot more fun along the way.

So all you skinny colleagues, bosses and friends of mine out there-put your seatbelts on because you know from experience the way this girl  learns is to ask a ton of questions about your own success. So along with my questions about how to not be scared of going home to your kids, how to block out entirely and repress if your kids fails math and how to still come out a winner if your bank account is empty with a huge mortgage on a second home and that if you lose your jobs you will go bankrupt-I will now add to my list of vulnerability inducing questions such as “How do you get rid of unwanted fat around your hips?”

Can’t wait to come home and attack all you skinny girlsJ

PS-Gosh I love my (blind) but sweet husband. He just said “what are you blogging about?” I said “my body” he said “why” I said because “it is getting on my nerves lately” and he said………..

“That is crazy. You have perfect body and I love it. Why would you waste your time blogging about that?”

If you would like to order a clone of my Protector, the number is 1-800………J)))))))))

Unplugged

People often ask me why I am such a fan of technology breaks-for both kids and adults. I will tell you why:

Because breaks from it all makes us more present in our lives.

When I work with couples and families one of the first things I recommend is to get unplugged for certain periods of the day and the week. To make a deliberate choice to choose each other and family over work, friends, the Internet and life on Google.

I kid you not that in most cases it is an addiction. Taking these forced breaks for most people is like asking them to stop smoking or drinking and  in many cases  probably equally as hard. However I strongly feel it is necessary to really connect with the people who are around you, and to be present with them, and to focus on them, and to start making choices around what we do with our time.

I would argue that our increasingly prevalent technological society has led to the breakdown of the modern family. Blackberries have replaced time in front of the fire chatting with the kids. Computer games have replaced Monopoly games and cell phone texting has replaced live conversations with our children.

Sometimes I am tempted to tell thet families I have worked with to go camping for a week together and bring no technology at all. Chances are high they would learn things about their kids in that week that they never even know existed. Chances are the kids would learn things about themselves and their parents that they could not know if they are bottled up with screens and sirens all day long.

Trust me I know technology has many, many benefits for families as well-it’s not all bad. Texting your children is a great way to connect and keep in touch, Skype, enjoying movies together. The opportunities are endless for connection and closeness…if the family chooses to use them in that way that is.

Too often families on Friday nights will be found within the same rom each enjoying their own personal forms of technology. One on his laptop, one on her I-pod touch, one watching TV and the next on X-box Live. Mom chatting on the phone. Is this really being together though? It is probably better than being apart…but not half as powerful as enjoying an experience together.

I am asked the question often so will share with you a few rules in our household around technology. With almost 10, 12 and 14 yr. olds, I have struggled with these concepts often and have often felt I am losing an uphill battle more than once, but I can proudly say that we enjoy a lot of family time together technology free. I think we could be even better at it and I know some families that are stricter than we are around these issues, but I am pretty comfortable at this point with the rules that we have established in our home.

In our family:

-On schooldays we have an "unplugged concept"  between 4:30-6:30pm and it is very strict. Unless for homework purposes, all computers, cell phones, TV etc.. are shut down. Kids do homework during this time, prepare their stuff for the next schooldays, take their showers and then play outside or inside more creatively.

-Never any technology during family dinners or family time or family meetings. That means no answering the home phones, no cell phones, no TV during these times etc.. Except on Friday night where we eat in front of the TV and it is a special treat for all of us. Breakfast is eaten all weekdays together at the table and no TV.

-None under 18 yrs of age is allowed Internet access on any handheld device. Bear bought himself his own IPod Touch with his own money and we foolishly permitted this at first. He was connected way too much of the day to friends, on messenger etc.. We now let him keep the I-Pod but have taken off Internet access. Believe it or not he even asked for this as he said “he felt he was becoming too addicted to it and it was making him miserable”  We were very proud he realized his own limits and we vowed that it became a new rule in our house.

-On weekends at home between 11:30am-5:30pm we are very strict around technology and the kids unless they have a friend over are limited to one hour during this time. With friends over we are less strict as we want our house to be on “the preferred houses list” to hang out at because it is so important to us to know our kid’s friends and have our kids hang out around us. We feel if we enforced our stricter technology family rules at these times that we may lose some important opportunities to have our house as the place to hang out. It’s a tough and tricky one.. controversial I know.

-At friend's homes the kids respect the rules of that particular home. They are not expected to  take our rules necessarily to different homes with them.We trust their better judgment to a large degree.

-At the cottage there are no computers or computer games allowed at all ever-unless of course for academics. TV is out too between 11am-6pm and very limited after those hours. Our kids enjoy the fresh air, water, bikes, neighbors, trampoline and a whole lot of creative fun they make up for themselves like miniput course, chopping wood and  generally putzing around outside and in the garage. Along with a multitude of summer and winter sports , this keep us all pretty busy.  We go to the cottage every weekend of Summer and Winter and every third weekend in Fall or Springs-so that’s a lot of technology time they don’t get and it has probably been one of the best things of keeping our kids young, carefree in a lot of ways and very close as siblings in general.

-No cell phones or computers are allowed in rooms except for homework and none of our kids until age of 18 will be allowed TV’s, computers or cells in their rooms even as teenagers.

-Kids allowed email as of end of grade 5, Facebook as of high school and cell phone as of summer before high school begins. We get good prices on kid’s cell phones because my work has a nice and affordable family plan . (since English is my kid’s second language and my first, the condition is that they have to text me in full sentences in English often, in order to keep their cell phones).

-My Guy and I unplug every single night from work and every single weekend during the hours the kids are awake. After that we do often work quite a bit (especially me) but always make sure we have couple time too as  it is high priority for us.   Only problem is that both my Guy and I want it all: family time, couple time, work time. We end of going to bed far too  late at night despite our best efforts every single night. We use our sleep time to do all this other stuff we like which is definately not something anyone should aspire too. Got to figure it all out. How to fit it all in in a healthier way,

What I am working on now is unplugging from texting while my kids are awake in evening and always being connected. I love it so much as a great way to connect with friends, but realize I have to limit to certain times or can become all-consuming and makes me less present in whatever else it is I am trying to accomplish.

-On vacation (as we are right now for 2 weeks), we always take the first week as unplugged completely even from the kids. No texting, no emails from work or personal. We do watch movies, but that is it. The second week we call the kids once, we email with them back and forth but we do not touch our work emails. It’s our way of ensuring we are energized when we go back. It’s amazing how being unplugged let’s you just be together, and hang out, and enjoy each other and laugh and hug and cuddle and share. It’s very bonding. (Oh ya I am allowed to blog as it is a “creative outlet” and I love having time to write more often). My Guy often reads articles on the Internet but stays away from news. If there is a tragedy in the world-we will hear about it when we get back. We prefer to shelter ourselves for these two luxurious weeks from the outside world. It’s sacred to us.

So that is pretty much what we do in our house and it is a constant work in progress as the kids grow and change and I learn and make mistakes and readjust. Fundamentally what I think is important are those families giving this thought and make deliberate choices.

I have been influenced to a large degree by my sister Saavy who spends wonderful deliberate time in her family and has often shared with me about family nights, family sleepovers, technology free Sundays and has shared with me how these events have been a key role in her family life. I have built some of my unplugged rules on the basis of some of these concepts. If you ever want to check out her great blog “Raising Flowers and Skids”-please do! I learn a lot from reading about her great ideas….and am lucky to also have her as a  24-7 counselor if ever I need advice!

So all you families out there…I encourage you to take a look at what your technology patterns are like and if you feel these patterns are working for your family or against them? Do you feel burnt out by technology sometimes and if so..how can you change this or alter it?  Do you feel a prisoner of your work or in charge of your work? Are you a crackberry? Do you tweet more often than you eat with your family? Do you post more often about wanting to  enjoy a family outing than actually enjoying your family time together? Do your Facebook friends know you better than your real friends do? And if so why is that?

Ask yourself these questions and see what is there for you. And let me know please….as I am always looking at ways that I can encourage our family to become even less dependent on technology and more engaged with  each other. I welcome your great ideas and strategies.

Off I am…to watching my fave shows Modern Family and Revenge!!! A lot of talk I am eh??? I could choose to go outside, snuggle with my hubby and listen to the waves of nature. But tonight I choose Primetime ABC right after I write about the downfalls of today’s modern world!