Television Toddler

Now that the wee one is not quite so wee and is, in fact, developing an attention span longer than his index finger, we've been integrating television into his life. Because we're really awesome parents like that. In fact, a normal day consists of me putting the kid in front of the television at eight in the morning with a beer in one hand and a remote in the other. Usually he passes out a couple hours later and wakes up in the late afternoon for another episode of Scooby Doo. Okay, so we don't really do that. You caught me. But we have been allowing him to watch about a half hour of TV at night, just before bed. It calms him down and helps us get an extra half hour out of a child who really begins meltdown phase around 7:00 pm.

Yes I know that I am breeding attention deficit disorder. I'm just hoping that with a half hour a day, he develops only a mild case. I know that there are better parents than me out there, parents who do not own televisions, for example. I also know that there are worse parents, parents who pacify their eight month old with hours of Ed, Edd and Eddy. (Allow me to inform you that I have actually tried to sit through an episode of Ed, Edd and Eddy and it nearly killed me. It makes no sense and is a complete waste of airtime. It has been banned from my home. Take note, Troy.) I've decided that where television is concerned, I am a middle of the road kind of parent. I've got, maybe a B average. I'll trade my A for that half hour of snuggle time with my nearly comatose toddler. While we're on the subject of bad, er average, parenting, it should also be noted that I did not make my child wait until he turned one or two or fifteen to have sugar. In fact, he helped himself to his first bite at the ripe old age of three months. That's when, sitting in his bouncer, he lunged for my finger (which was sticking a pacifier back into his mouth) and heartily sucked cookie dough right off of it. I should have known he'd know exactly what it was. He'd had a major sweet tooth since the womb.

So anyway, we've been watching a lot of Scooby Doo and a lot of the Disney channel. Now there are some fine acting skills on the Disney channel. Let...me...tell...you. Kind of makes me wonder why I'm not more famous. Or, famous at all, for that matter. But I'm beginning to understand the obsession with Miley Cyrus er Hannah Montana er Miley Cyrus er, whoever she is. Other than the semi-annoying way she over enunciates her lines and does an extremely weird mouth contorting thing, she's totally cute. I just hope she doesn't turn into another train wrecking Britney Spears. I'm also beginning to laugh hysterically at The Suite Life of Zach and Cody. I mean, a character who is an uber rich supersnob and heiress to a hotel tycoon being named London Tipton. Now that's just funny. I wonder if Paris Hilton finds it as funny as I do.