We are all spending too much time on technology. The adults are as bad as the kids.

We're alternating between TV show time, Nintendo time, school computer time, movie time, free computer time, Nintendo time and also watch Daddy play Nintendo time.

I've got my Blog, Facebook and holiday research. I thought I knew all there was about Disney Parks. Then I realized I could look into the parks in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Paris. If you want to see amazing, check out the virtual tour of the Frozen Suite at the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel. I can picture my girls faces in there.

I spent some times looking at how Shanghai has opened their Disney Park, although we have no intent to go there. I also have to follow the rumorville of the North America Disney Parks to see how and when they might open. I've got report cards to type and homeschooling curriculum to find online. I've got my iPhone and my computer, and even still I somehow I end up with children having taken over my technology and me without any.

I finally decided to try some computer based school programs on the kids. It's not something we usually use. MsE signed into Teach Your Monster to Read. It's free. She has to teach her monster to read. That's not quite what I thought it would be. It's all games with her monster. It took MsE about a week to realize it was actually teaching her something and not just a game; I think that's a pretty good recommendation.

MsC and MsE are playing around in Starfall.com, which is a learning platform we hadn't bothered with since we had it free through the school district back when MsC was in kindergarten. It has good stuff for K-grade 3. It's $50 a year.

I signed MsC up for a Science based class that mails out badges at the end of each class. You log in and get your assignments online, do the work offline and then upload your work for the teacher. $6 and we're liking it. I think MsC would rather try an interactive class with students to work in online groups. But she does like that a teacher is marking her work with this Science class, because she says when I mark her work it don't count. I'll probably sign her up for something more interactive when I find one. They can be quite pricey so I want to make sure she'll actually do the class.

I resisted buying Nintendo for a million years, but we now have 2 handheld Nintendo Switches. By the time we decided to buy one during the Lock Down, stores were all closed and they were even sold out everywhere online. One local shop listed the sold out Switch for $10,000; we don't know if they were joking or not.  We couldn't even get them shipped here from overseas. When they came back in stock, we bought the 2 at double the regular price (not $10,000).

Jonathan downloaded Zelda for himself and theb did nothing else for a week. I don't know when he found time to sleep. He downloaded a children's version for MsC. She likes it a lot. The girls also discovered Minecraft. I set MsE up a Creative World where she can build anything, and she fell down that rabbit hole. She's always telling me about how her pig had another baby or her horse got stuck in the pond and she couldn't get it out. Then she'll suddenly shout something about the carrot. "It must have been the carrot! The carrot I was holding!" She's made a big house and says she is making a zoo. MsC likes Minecraft too, especially since she tried using the Creative mode, but it's seriously MsE's forte.

One of the Nintendo Switches can be used on the TV. We do any of the more active games on there, like Mario Party or Just Dance. They're actually a lot of exercise, especially Just Dance. MsC and I usually dance to KPop in the morning and in the afternoon. I'm getting better at following along. Sometimes the other girls join in. MsI likes that you can dance to Baby Shark.

MsI, at 2 1/2 years old says "It's not fair, I want to play a game" now, when everyone else is on a device. She actually likes Starfall too. She also likes the little language apps I have on the phone for Mandarin and Hindi. She particularly likes to draw the Mandarin characters. You have to trace the lines in their specific order or you can't move on to the next one.

She also doesn't want to watch the same Big Kids shows on the TV like the other girls. One day I hand her my iPhone with Netflix to watch it beside us on the couch. She scrolls through and finds what she wants to watch herself. Next thing I know MsI has switched from the Netflix app to the YouTube app.

Mommy: "MsI, you are not supposed to watch YouTube? "

   [MsI get up off the couch with the phone and begins to run away.]

Mommy: "Wait! Where are you going?"

MsI: "To my room! So you can't see me watch YouTube.

Mommy: "You can't watch YouTube in your room either. Come here and lets see what you were watching on YouTube?"

   [MsI comes back and hands me the phone.]

MsI: "Oh no! You can NOT watch Donald Trump speeches. Umm, how about Baby Shark?"

I try not to buy too many movies, but they're just right there on the TV. I think I'm doing one a week (about $20). We check that they're not on Netflix first and try to find the sale ones that cost less. We don't have Disney Plus in Singapore or I'd never have to buy movies. (And believe me Jonathan tried everything to get the Disney Plus system to believe we were in Canada, but but nothing worked.)

We do movie time after lunch, while our Helper washes the floor. It keeps the kids from running down the hall over the marble floor as it dries. Marble is ridiculously slippery. Washing the floor everyday sounds crazy to me, but it keeps the tiny sugar ants at bay - they are perceptually persistent and find the tiniest speck of food on the floor and then there is a long trail of ants to try to dissuade instead of a few random food seekers puttering around. Jonathan says none of our homes have ever been so clean, and it's true.

I don't want the girls on technology all the time, but everyone just feel a bit off right now. Jonathan set up automatic screen limits on the Nintendos, but mostly the girls just ignore the warning that they've gone over, and we haven't set them to automatically shut off yet. I tell them they'll go blind if they just stare at screens all day.

I make the girls break up the screen time with other real life activities, but we're on screen's way too much right now. I don't even count our online drama class or the zoom or video calls with family and friends anymore. That's not tech time; that's socialization today.

On the other hand, I'm certain we would all drop the screens in a heartbeat if we were told we could jump in the pool or climb on the playground right now.