Yearending. The ScreenTime review.

We've finished off 2012 with a trip to Centre Parcs, one thing new for us. We found out we can be quite mean to each other, scared and isolated, specially when we're all hooked up online some way. Without the gizmos we fared far better, a sobering and kind of saddening bit of self awareness.

Much planning must go on. Got to find the will to cut the screen time.

Funnily enough we can leave tv shows on pause/resume for days and turn off movies, even Jaan can. It's personal online time that causes the internal friction, and more significantly, imposes some sort of green eyed monter hold upon the excluded two. Makes me insecure, Iain frustrated and put upon and makes Jaan overwhelmed & tearful. So perhaps our new rules for happy coexistence should be as below -

(oh the coexistence has to be between us 3, the pets plus our Ipad, smartphones, pc and Macbook, tv/DVD player/TiVo/Audible, Moshi Monsters, car Forums, WeightWatchers Online & Netflix - I don't think we subscribe to anything else) 

Physical/sensory (sensible?) relationships need to be maintained, respected and nurtured/kept topped up before the more abstract, detached, meta sensory screen based activity happens. So Jaan should not be hungry, dirty or tired before playing a game online. If possible, he should also have already been doing something fun or routine with one of the rest of us. The home should be physically halfway respectable so Ee can do some forum stuff or watch I-player without feeling all dragged about and uneasy. The fed/watered/walked status needs to be A-OK for all of us and I mean ALL the little ones not just Jaan. It's totally easier to start with screen time, as if that's the beginning and end of all evil in our home, that would be a fallacy though.  Ee looks like he runs on empty which pleases me not at all. If it turns out he just chooses to look like that I'll have to think again, but for now a priority pyramid is a first stop.

Another rule could be sharing the extra-real world as we individually use it with each other. Jaan could play Moshi online only with one of us, and play just for a small time, so it can be a shared activity first, computer game second - we read he clicks. I could do the Ocado in my own time and plan menus on WeightWatchers but find a time to share what's on the food forecast for the next few days with the other 2, as a reality rather than a what-do-you-want fantasy. Ee could plan when he'll watch/zone out with the Ipad to coincide with me being able to be near him doing my own thing, far less isolating.

The pitfalls of how we do it now appear to be - I get ignored and eat junk, Jaan gets behavioural issues and plus, he won't sleep, Ee gets no "me time" and is a moody sad moo. Third rule is an awareness of this bad-time scenario. It's NOT acceptable after all. Basically I won't rejoin the living unless I cut out the dead-end bits of screen time, Jaan will slash his own potential to ribbons without better examples and guidance to follow, and we'll never know if Ee is just a grumpypants or if life wih us is really short-changing him unless he has a better set up for his own screen time.

Easier said than done, darn it. Constant onlinity isn't all it's cracked up to be, the hype is poo. I have found when I'm with my mates I'm engaged and having a totally multi dimensional time. Just hanging about with nothing but online for more than a third of a day though ..... snoresville, and my online experience is beautifully coordinated and effected by my actual real friends, and their tastes and preferences, as well as my own. It's a sophisticated conjunction of what I love doing and talking about with my actual everyday mates and my personal everyday shopping/eating/scheduling and news tools. It's supposed to supplement my mornings with Deb, quick meet ups with Cathy and afternoons with Katie. It still leaves me lacking though, and falls apart if I don't see them really. It's been a massive fail with friends and family outside this precious trinity though as my siblings and family just don't use their wwwpresence in this way. Gah humbug.

Bear Vs Crane

Watch "Jaan receives his kung fu award" on YouTube

Watch "jaan's version of Green Day's oh love" on YouTube

A Jaan Update, Sept 2012

[This was originally the text of an email update sent to Jaan's beloved friends and relatives ... does what it says on the tin so it's here too!]

Jaan will be 4 at the end of the month, and we're moving house soon, nearer my folks, and near Jaan's school (Cambridge Steiner School in Fulbourn, he's in Kindergarten, in a class called Appleblossom where he is with kids aged about 4 till about 7.) Jaan tells me "I LOVE it! I'm SO HAPPY." 

He spends one morning in the woods doing the same sorts of things they do indoors ... just outdoors, two mornings in the classroom & in the garden, from what I gather from Jaan, mostly making bonfires with his mate Ben, and plotting how to get more apples from the tree. Jaan is a bit scared of climbing trees just now, but he likes to brace himself along the lower limbs of the trees and say"I'm strong". He also likes to move branches to help bigger kids climb. 

He loves his best mate Arti, and misses him when they don't meet in the week. They go to different schools and are in different school years, so Jaan will have to get used to it. He tells everyone we are moving to be near Arti's house, which is true. The new house is Walpole Road. We'll be able to walk to Mum's if we want (or get the bus) and the same for Cathy's. This is awesome news for me and Jaan. Iain will be commuting to Royston on the train, which is a very new thing for him! There's a school bus that will get Jaan and me to school in the mornings, and before we know it, Jaan will be on that bus without me, keeping his mate Ben company. Our place will be one of the later stops on the journey, we will not be that far from the school. 

Jaan still loves Skype-ing, and is very interested in Facebook - when people tell him they will send him some news or a picture he asks them to Facebook him. He plays Angry Birds on my Facebook account and gets a pretty good weekly ranking, he's on the podium at any rate :)  He has been enjoying the promo levels linked with the Ultrabook and Green Day. He's a keen air-drummer now, and Arti and Jaan together have been known to air-guitar and air-drum themselves silly on our sofa. Jaan definitely identifies with the drumming most. I also hear him most days playing on his keyboard, making up 'tunes'. Like me, he sings all the time. At bedtime sometimes he asks me for sleepytime songs, or 'you can sing your songs mummy', and other times, 'not your songs, sing my songs, Thomas or Angry Birds'. I refuse point blank to sing an Angry Bird song - Jaan watches and listens to kids' videos on YouTube, and often there is an ad-hoc Angry Birds 'song' involved ((shudder)). 

Our newest interest as a family is the Moshi Monster website, a truly superb bit of childsplay. It's great, a good atmosphere and full of the gross things (goo, slime, eyeballs etc) that little boys love to talk about. I far prefer him playing within its safe confines, making the most of their parodies of all the big games and their music videos/pop songs. Compared with the media world outside of Moshi Monsters, the way Jaan is enjoying himself with his Moshi mates, with us tagging along too is most reassuring. The aim of the whole thing is to solve mysteries, complete challenges and collect Moshlings. The monsters themselves are based on a few basic prototypes, it's all fascinating for Jaan. He wants to know why his friends choose different colours and different monsters to him. He likes to choose the missions, and solve some of the puzzles himself, and wants us to do some too. He chooses who to be friends with as part of the game. It all gives me a great deal of confidence in his ability to make these necessary judgments and advances as he spends more time with his peergroup and older kids. He's much better now at saying hello and playing with new kids, as we get ample opportunity to roleplay tricky intros. 

When he plays by himself his games involve building intricate and imaginative settings for his Angry Birds and pigs, sometimes other characters are involved too, sometimes trains and tracks too. He likes one of us to do the voices. He calls his play 'making videos'. He's keen to add Moshi Monsters figures to the game as their characteristics and sound effects will enhance these 'videos' no end. He likes a few big plush Angry Birds to be involved too, as they knock the most piggies off the blocks! Plus they are cuddly. Angry Birds have a series of toys called Mash 'Ems that go splat and stick briefly where they land (on a smooth surface) - kind of like playing darts in a pre-schooler squashy way - and they are slung using a sling-shot, and sling shots/catapults are what he wants most in his life! 

He still loves a good story, Billy Goats Gruff and Peter Rabbit/Squirrel Nutkin are the tops these days, as are his Thomas storybooks. He reads his magazines (Moshi Monsters, Thomas, CBeebies, Toy Story) - although nowadays he is less interested in CBeebies, and likes Cat in the Hat, Horrid Henry, Canimals and Fleabag Monkeyface from CITV. He keeps talking about having Sky TV again when we move house (news to me!) and getting the Disney Channel again, "The red one Mummy, the one for Big Kids." ..... ????? ... red one? ... I take this to mean he is no longer a baby, he is a 'little kid' or a 'big kid' depending on the activity. 

Jaan likes to talk about space, wormholes, the insides of a human being, dogs, cats, cakes, sweeties, bonfires, the relative old-ness of people, friends and what friends do, holidays and Appleblossom class. That is, when he is not talking about Cut the Rope's Om Nom (this is a computer game) and Angry Birds or Moshi Monsters. 

He likes us being a family, he says, Mummy, Daddy, Jaan, Sparkee and Pixie. He looks forward to seeing his Mimi and Grandad when they are in town, tells me all about watching cricket with Nanabhai, and loves his Nanujaan perhaps best of all. Good thing too as she does almost all of the school run and babysitting for us!

Watching Jaan cope with the turbulant times, so prominent in a 4 year old's life, can be heart wrenching at times, but I am proud of him more often than not. He can get very angry when a bigger kid thwarts him, and he'll tell me or Iain, "I'm burning, I'm on fire. I hate him, I'm so angry I want to hit him, I want to kill him. No, don't come near me I'm burning and you will burn too" and he breathes till he can be calm, and then makes amends and moves on, although half the time making amends is hard and it takes quite a while before he can do what is best to make peace. He tries not to fight, and tries to be mature about it. He doesn't really succeed in being anything but a 4 year old child most of the time when tensions are high, and he often calls me, Iain or other kids a "poo" or a "foo" in righteous disgust.  But he knows how to take turns, to share, and how to be kind and friendly, and he does all those things beautifully. 

Finally, thank you everyone who asked for present ideas. Jaan loves his toys, and I love having things in the house that people who love us have sent us. Iain loves not having to buy everything Jaan wants and needs himself ... LOL. Here we are (obviously, don't feel you HAVE to buy him anything at all, more than anything his lists are a snapshot of what he is like these days, on the cusp of 4-year-old-ness). 

His all encompassing Amazon list is here http://www.amazon.co.uk/registry/wishlist/1HCLQOEGFUFF6

And here are his pinterest boards, enjoy!

http://pinterest.com/prettychickpea/jaan-s-birthday-list-his-own-choice-of-toys-and-go/

http://pinterest.com/prettychickpea/gifts-for-jaan-s-4th-birthday-chosen-by-his-parent/

http://pinterest.com/prettychickpea/jaan-s-birthday-list-practical-stuff-for-a-4-year-/

Nice toys here http://www.myriadonline.co.uk/ostheimer-woodland-animals.php

Love, N x