Legos and TV

After MG (5 mos) was born, I got into the bad habit of letting my son watch too much television. It's been something that I've been working on decreasing but some days, when there seems like there's just too much to do and not enough time to do it, the televsion buys me some much needed time. I've been brainstorming different activities and things that ME (3.5) can do instead of watch TV while I am doing other things but those things take planning, organizing, and being prepared. Really, I'm letting my all-or-nothing perfectionism get in the way of implementing these activities for now but that's another story. Anyway, I've discovered the secret to keeping the TV off in our home - keep the living floor messy with legos overnight. Usually, ME (3.5) needs to clean up all of his toys in the living room before he goes to bed at night. Well recently he wasn't able to so the legos just stayed out. The next morning, when he wanted to watch TV I told him he could as soon as the legos were cleaned up. Well, he played for HOURS before he asked to watch TV again! Wonderful! And so far today, the TV has been off all day and ME (3.5) is cleaning up his legos playing all by himself in the living room. So that's my new trick! Keep the living room a mess at night (which goes against every thing in me!) to keep the TV off in the morning! That and have a construction crew in front of your house repaving the road for a few days - that will provide hours of entertainment for a three-year-old boy!