Summer detox

Last night was the season finale of Lost, and I mentally checked this one off the list and breathed a small sigh of relief. I'm a little sad to see our favorite shows end, one-by-one, for the summer, but I'm actually kind of happy, too. I think our list of shows we follow has gotten unwieldy over the past few months and I'll be glad to trade most of them in for longer evenings on the porch, and dinners at the pool. I tallied up our recent schedule of our nightly TV habit and came up with this: Sunday: Law & Order: CI Monday: 24 Tuesday: Fringe AND Law & Order SVU Wednesday: Lost Thursday: The Office and 30 Rock Saturday: Torchwood One day when I lost my patience with L. for exploding on me because we missed ten minutes of Fang Face he pointed out that I'm always rushing him off to bed on Monday nights before 24 starts. I think one of the reasons we didn't participate in the recent annual TV Turnoff Week is that we just weren't sure Scott and I would be able to uphold our end of things. Now that summer is around the corner I'm also happy that the kids will be watching less television, too. L., as you all know is a creature of habit--and this definitely extends to TV watching. We don't allow the kids to watch too much television (one hour/day for their "rest" time). T. will happily give up part or all of the hour to play with her neighbor friend from across the street, or if we're out and about, but for L. that hour is golden, and sacred, and carved into stone. We're trying to wean him of this little by little because summer is on its way, and school is out for L. in a little over two weeks. Our neighborhood pool opens on May 23rd, T. is signed up for the swim team, we'll be back to lazy late afternoon swims and dinners poolside and fitting Clue Club around swim team practice will be virtually impossible. We're dubbing the upcoming summer months as our TV detox time. I can't promise we won't get hooked on a summer show or two (Torchwood's new season starts in July, after all), but I'm looking forward to us all breaking away from the television habit--letting go of those shows we follow for a few months at least--and spending more time outside in the real world. How much TV gets watched at your house? Are you planning on running your own summer detox program at your house?