We’re back from our holiday.  We had a lovely time and I will post photos soon.

While we were away, I took the opportunity to read Doing It Their Way again as I have been feeling like we’ve been drifting away from the autonomous lifestyle we want.  It’s made me confront the biggest issue for us which is Flopsy’s worship of the tv.  She asks to put it on, then watches it for a long time, then eventually comes downstairs for a break of an hour or so, then watches it again.  All this time I am displaying my reluctance to let her as I can’t get away from the idea that it is bad for her.  This feeling is despite the fact she shows she’s learning loads from it (and who cares if she isn’t!) and it sparks a lot of imaginative play, rather than dampening it as seems to be one of the concerns of tv-dislikers.  We have decided (after discussing with other autonomous families) that my random limits (ie. depending on how I’m feeling when Flopsy asks to watch it) and my obvious dislike of it could be causing her to ‘binge’ on it more than she would under normal circumstances.  Therefore we are going to aim for total non-coercion in our house for a couple of weeks and see what happens.  If we are still concerned at the level of tv-watching going on, we will discuss with Flopsy why we are concerned and see if we can come to an agreement that suits us all about how much tv and when etc.  I think I will also try to ‘chart’ our progress on this blog and will attempt, for a week at least, to document each day as they happen!  I’ll start with yesterday (as we haven’t really had much of today yet!).