kill your television

Yesterday our TV died. "Accidentally drowned during routine toddler cleaning" is what I'm guessing the coroners report will say.

I have never contemplated motherhood without a TV before, an embarrassing admission I know, but the truth. For the last year,  particularly since Freddy was born, the television has been an almost constant source of background noise, distraction and entertainment. Without the TV on I wouldn't have been able to get a single thing done....or so I thought?

I'm halfway through day one and the house is clean (relatively), we've painted pictures, made fairy wands, built a house from duplo, smashed a house from duplo, had showers, gotten dressed, washed the breakfast dishes, made the beds, sewed a doll, read some books, cooked lunch, washed the lunch dishes and now both the kids are down for naps. Nothing too out of the ordinary productivity wise, but all without a single melt down and my sanity intact. Our first TV free day has, so far been pleasant and productive. I'm beginning to wonder if television really is the pixelated Mary Poppins I always thought her to be?

With an epic number of big expenses on the cards for the first half of 2011, it's going to be six months before we can afford a replacement. Six months without a television leaves me with the burning question, 'what would Mary Poppins do?'