TV Free- The Life for Me... At least for a week. Kinda.

So in all relationships, the key to health and happiness and understanding is...(Say it with me!) communication.  Well, it seems I needed some help with this, and Ben suggested we go without the TV for a week.  I have a hunch that it will last longer than that.  Except when I am nursing Miles during the day and Owen is down for a nap.

We have been in survival mode at our home since Miles arrived.  For me, its been pretty good during the day, but by the time Ben gets home from work, say 6-ish, I'm spent.  I've put in an 11 hour day of mommyhood and I just want to lay like broccoli.  Well, that does a number on a marriage.  Zoning out in front of the television isn't exactly a great way to keep the romance alive.  So, we are going on a TV diet.  Last night, we put Owen to bed, came downstairs and laid on the couch together reading and it felt so much more connected than having the hum of conversations between actors in the background.  How is it that just laying together, each in our own worlds can feel romantic?

Years ago I visited my friend Corryn in Portland and she hosted a bunch of friends at her house that weekend.  On Sunday morning after we'd all eaten our breakfasts and were sipping our mugs of coffee or tea, we all gravitated toward the living room with books in-hand, all found a place to curl-up, and we all started reading.  There must have been like eight of us all sitting there in this room, sprawled all over the place, united in our individual absorption.  It was one of the simplest, loveliest moments of my early adulthood, and I remember it clearly.  Dan said he wished we all had thought bubbles like in comic books, and its just a very clear visual I have.

Reading is a good mind-stretching activity.  I'm just starting a book called "Loving Frank" by Nancy Horan.  It is about Frank Lloyd Wright and his love affair with one of his clients.  Ben is reading "Pillars of the Earth" and I couldn't be happier.  I've been trying to get him to read it for a while now, and he's already getting emotionally tied up with the characters.  I've never hated a character so much as when I was reading Pillars.  I hope he keeps reading because I really want to share books with him.  When I finally read my first Patrick O'Brien book, a new connection developed with Ben because he loved Steven and Jack so much.  It kind of feels like a secret shared.  Why is that?

So for the time being, the Happy Hum around our house has nothing to do with TV.