A confession....
I started out as many new mothers do, determined that my children would not fall victim to the electronic babysitter. I religiously followed the
AAP's recommendations and would wait two years before I allowed any of them to watch TV. Of course, then it would be no more than one hour per day of highly educational,
Spongebob-free TV, closely monitored by yours truly. And when they were finished with that one hour, they would promptly sit down to eat an array of perfectly balanced meals, topping each one off with a refreshing glass of ice cold milk and a plateful of carrot sticks.
And that's exactly how thing started. More or less. Okay...so the balanced meal thing never really took off.
But I did try to limit Benjamin's TV exposure. He was allowed to watch Sesame Street every day. Then I found myself conveniently "forgetting" to turn it off so I could get one more load of laundry put in the washer. Soon, that interminable stretch between the end of breakfast and the beginning of Sesame Street got to be simply unbearable, and the TV was on just a tad earlier. Just a tad.
Ainsley never made it to the magical age of two because her big brother was already watching TV. I got myself out of
that guilt trap by rationalizing that she wasn't really paying attention to it. She just liked being with Benjamin.
And thus it went, somewhat slowly (yet steadily) downhill.
Then we moved to Pullman and, lo and behold, had no network TV reception. It was easy for us to make the decision not to subscribe to any dishes or cables--so easy in fact, that our wallets made the decision
for us.
Now before we get too much further, let me squelch some misconceptions at the get-go. We were
not TV free. In fact, in our small apartment we have two TVs. Nor was I (or am I still) anti-TV. I believe that there is much good that can come from carefully chosen media. Also, in all fairness to ourselves, our decision not to have cable or the like was
not purely financial. Andrew and I really did want to limit the kids' TV exposure and felt that this was a good way to carefully choose the media that our children saw.
Okay, so we didn't have Sesame Street anymore. But we had Dora DVDs. And Blues Clues DVDs. And we had
Disney; lots and lots of Disney. And it seems that each Christmas or birthday brings
even more Disney. It was no longer sitting down to watch one episode: it was sitting down to watch one
movie, or one entire Dora video consisting of three mind-numbing installments.
And then, of course, I got pregnant. Now it wasn't even sitting down to watch one movie anymore. It was sitting down to watch
two (as I lolled on the couch waiting for the vacuum fairy to come and clean my floor).
May I insert just one more disclaimer here? I don't feel that bad about the kids' TV watching while I was pregnant. When your body is possessed by demon baby-hormones for 9 months, you are allowed to do whatever it takes to survive.
My point is that now the baby is out. The demon baby-hormones have been replaced by their less debilitating, yet just as obnoxious cousins: the recovering-lactation-still-20-pounds-overweight hormones. But the TV watching had remained the same.
Until the other day when Mede came out of the playroom after watching about an hour of TV. He had a huge wet spot on his shirt that I conveniently attributed to a spilled drink of some sort (even though they aren't allowed to have drinks in the playroom). But it kept happening, day after day. And then it dawned on me. Our little Mede sucks his two middle fingers and as his mind was being taken over by the boob-tube, his spit was dribbling down his fingers, down his arm, onto his shirt. I was horrified (and not just because it was a disgusting puddle of spit on his chest): my child had zombie drool on his shirt. It was as if I could see in that wet circle ten little IQ points swimming around, happy to be freed from his mind.
I knew that something had to be done. But still I put it off, thinking that I would wait for Andrew to be done with his internship, or I would wait until Benjamin started school, or I would wait for [insert nebulous, far-off point in time here].
I had discussed my plans with Andrew, telling him that (someday) I wanted to limit the kids TV watching to Friday night (Family Movie Night in the Helm household) and Saturday mornings. He supported me from 100 miles away, so much so that on one of his rare days home, he told the kids the plan before leaving for work. As Ainsley was plotting which show she would pick that morning, Benjamin condescendingly reminded her, "Daddy said we're not going to watch TV today."
He what?!
I wasn't ready for this! I hadn't planned! I hadn't reached that nebulous, far-off point in time yet! My mind immediately started spinning, trying to think of some way that I could buy some more time without directly going against Daddy. There was no way. I swallowed hard, gritted my teeth and said, "Yes. We're not going to watch TV during the week anymore," then braced myself for the inevitable weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. Benjamin's response was, "Okay," and Ainsley's only concern was that it was finally her turn to pick that morning. There was, however, some faint wailing which, upon further investigation, I realized was coming from the depths of my own lazy soul. I was also internally weeping as I thought of the change that was going to have to take place in me. Yes, folks, it was I that had become dependent on TV, not the kids. And in that epiphanic moment I saw that that fact was what had truly been bothering me all along. TV is not evil in and of itself--the way I was using it, however, was bad.
But the fact still remained that I needed to shower and our bathroom is conveniently located right next to Katie's room where she was peacefully napping. I thought, "Surely I can put something in just long enough to keep them from pounding on the bathroom door and shouting about how Ainsley wouldn't let Benjamin look at the book or how Mede was pulling Ainsley's hair." Afterall, it's Katie's nap I'm protecting here, right?
But no...I would see this through. And if all else failed, at least I could blame Andrew for the mayhem that would ensue.
I followed the kids into the playroom and asked them what they wanted to play with while I was taking a shower. I emphasized that it had to be something that they could do in the playroom, by themselves. Ainsley said she wanted to play with the puppet show, meaning the doorway puppet theater I had spent hours making for Benjamin's birthday party that they used once (for all of two minutes) and hadn't even looked at since.
I got it all set up and could hear them laughing together as I gathered my things for the shower. I wondered to myself how long that could possibly last and hurried through my shower. Finally came the moment of truth. I opened the playroom door slowly, half expecting to find something between a Roman Gladiator tournament and a WWF ring. Instead I found Ben and Ainsley sitting on the couch watching while Mede entertained them. I settled in between them to watch the "show." There was Mede, puppet in hand, hiding behind the curtain and reciting his gibberish in high-pitched imitation sounds. It was about the cutest thing I've ever seen and I laughed out loud. Then they begged me to do a show, so it was my turn to hide behind the curtain.
We had so much fun! I couldn't help but think how much we would have missed if I had just popped in a DVD. The next day the kids didn't even ask about TV.
Hmmm...I guess maybe it's time to start weaning them off dinosaur chicken....
Nah!
Here are some pictures from our morning fun:
I let the kids each take some pictures, as well. The following are their contributions (Benjamin's, Ainsley's, and Mede's, in that order):
We got to go to the wedding of a friend from high school. Did I say we got to go? Nay...we pretty much ran the show. Or at least we were the cutest part of it, with Ainsley as flower girl, Benjamin as ring bearer and Andrew as a groomsman. (Luckily Ainsley swallowed the grapes before the ceremony started.)
Since we were travelling to the other side of the state anyway, we decided to make a real trip of it. We got to tour a battleship in Bremerton (which made me think of my Grandpa Smith the entire time I was learning what life was like for Navy sailors).
There was a really cool fountain that the kids had fun playing in. See how excited Ainsley was??
We also got to go to a real zoo with real (and really cool) animals: the Point Defiance Zoo in Tacoma.
To truly honor our little princess, we had a Ladybug Picnic/Tea Party. You would think that with a birthday in August we could plan an outdoor party for her without worrying too much about the weather. In keeping with true 2008 form, however, the weather did not cooperate and hence, winter coats at our ladybug picnic.
