Saying Goodbye To Cable Television

We have been debating for months whether or not to cancel our satellite tv. Bryan and I are not big tv watchers anyway mainly because we don't have time and because there isn't hardly anything fit to watch anymore on tv. Unfortunately, we have let Maddox get a little out of hand with watching tv. The AAP recommends children under 2 should not watch tv at all and above that age they should only watch 2 hours a day. I think Maddox would have been fine after he turned 1 watching one movie or show in the evening or something as a family, but we did not stick to that very well. I hope to do better with Natalie! He doesn't really "watch" much tv, but he is like me and likes to have background noise, which is a terrible habit I hope to break both of us from. We don't really use the tv to "babysit" him either simply because he will only sit still and watch something if I am snuggled up next to him usually right before bed.  I definitely find myself having the tv on more when I am babysitting Little Man because I think he watches a lot of tv at his house. He gets fussy after a few minutes if the tv is turned off, which means Maddox is exposed to more tv during the day than I would like. On days it is just Maddox and I , I try to leave the tv off as much as possible.

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We finally got our contract down to where the cancellation fee would be the same price as one more bill would be, so we thought if we were really going to cancel it now would be the best time. Our bill was not very much the first few months, but they steadily increased the price over the last few months to now we are paying more than double what we started out paying, which is not fitting our budget anymore. Thankfully, Bryan agreed to be the one to call the company and let them know we wanted to cancel because they always try to wheel and deal with you to get you to stay. I felt a huge relief after he called them because I knew that was one less bill every month we would have to pay and I knew this would be a good for Maddox too (even though he may not realize that yet).

We still have Netflix and Bryan ordered the new version of "rabbit ears" for HD Tvs so we will get the local channels, so we won't be completely without tv, but we can really limit what Maddox watches and won't have to worry about him being exposed to commercials with Netflix. I do not like watching a kid's movie on cable tv and then they play commercials that are not suitable for children. Also, he won't be exposed to the "look at this cool toy you need to have right now" commercials, which I cringe every time they come on too! 

Our goal is to try to eliminate things from our home that are 
1.) not pleasing to God 
2.) taking time away that we could be spending with each other
3.) not beneficial to us or our children's health or development.

We've still got a ways to go to get our home to that "simple life" state we would like, but as long as we keep making baby steps we will get there eventually! My next goals are to get everyone eating healthier (which we are making baby steps towards that, but we often backslide) and to switch more of our cleaning products to natural cleaners!