Entertainment

So we are...what, about 2 weeks without a television now? And we seem to be surviving, nay, thriving. The entertainment armoire, TV, and DVD player are now hiding in our cavernous basement, awaiting the day when we decide just what in the heck we are going to do with them. Don't worry, it's not a basement that invites the occasional sneak-down to catch a movie--it's unfinished, cold, and leaky, and it smells like dogs. In place of the armoire we have set up one of my most-hated furniture pieces, a cheap bookshelf, bought at Target when first married, that threatens to collapse at any moment. I kind of hope it does collapse so that I have reason to buy two smaller bookshelves that match our others to replace it. For now this bookshelf houses our yearbooks, iPod docking station, record albums, and record player, with a couple empty shelves on top until I rearrange books to fit up there. (Actually, it's so rickety that I'm a little afraid to put too much weight on top.)

Yes, our record player and albums. Three Christmases ago, when Stephen and I had excessive amounts of money with which to lavish crazy gifts on one another, he bought me a record player, and we are especially enjoying its benefits now, when music is one of our only entertainment options. (Of course we also read like crazy--silly you, don't you know us?!) One of the many benefits of owning a record player is that you can find all kinds of albums for next-to-nothing. Sure, we own a few contemporary albums that were just as expensive as a CD, but for the music we love that isn't new, we scour garage sales, antique sales, and our parents' basements. Thus, we have a lovely collection of classical overtures, 70s folk and rock, Broadway musicals, Frank Sinatra, and holiday orchestrations.

As I write this, the boys and I are jamming out to Fiddler on the Roof. Seriously, they love it. I can't get "Tradition" out of my head, and Stephen and I are starting to identify more and more with the Papas and the Mamas, although I don't know how kosher my home is. Last night I dreamt about Professor Higgins and Eliza Doolittle, and we have taken a family vote and decided that really, we don't care for Cats. I can't wait for November, when I will allow myself the deep joy of pulling out the Christmas albums and singing along to their scratchy refrains. I will, of course, also enjoy the distress this causes my husband, a purist who believes Christmas music should only be listened to between Thanksgiving and December 26th.

So how 1940s can you get? We are living without a television, without a constant babble of noise and media, and we are thriving. We listen to record albums, read books, and occasionally remember to talk to one another. When it's time to feed the baby (which happens at least every two hours, if not more often), I don't automatically reach for the channel changer; instead, I reach for Eldest, which I am rereading while (im)patiently waiting for Candice to finish Breaking Dawn. Stephen has an entire top shelf of his own on the rickety bookcase dedicated to the many tomes he is reading at the moment, and the boys' books are forever strewn about the house instead of stacked neatly on the bottom shelf of the coffee table. When Jack and Baylor visit their Gamma and Gampa, they don't automatically head for the TV. Instead, they automatically head to the collection of books my mom keeps for them.

I don't mean to post this to brag about our great sacrifice or to judge others for having a television. Shoot, I love watching it as much as the next guy and jump at the chance outside of my own home. I just want to express how freed we feel, how totally unshackled, just by disconnecting the cable and moving the TV out of sight.

And if watching your little boys groove to the strains of "Sunrise, Sunset" isn't entertainment, then I don't know what is.