Easing up

This morning Milo said: "When I'm bigger I'm going to sleep in your bed and get up in the morning and iron my work shirt and go to work with an orange!"

Also, he has been having a rough time lately, missing Jake. He cried a lot this morning and at one point said "Mommy, I'm a sad boy!"

In other news, I would just like to say that I have taken a new turn in parenting: Today, at 2 years and 11 months, the kids watched a video. On the television. I mean a whole half-hour video. I've shown them occasional 2-minute you tube clips before, but they had never before watched a real video on the t.v. (or any t.v. at all).

And...it was pretty damn nice. They were actually mostly quiet and still for an entire half hour! Aside from the typical questions and commentary, that is, but they were very low key. I can totally see why people have their kids watch t.v.

What happened is that our DVD player broke, so it was time to buy a new one. But apparently these days you don't get DVD players anymore, you get "blue ray" players, whatever that is. But our t.v. was too old to be compatible with a blue ray player. Soooo, long story short, Jake's birthday present was a new t.v. One of those fancy plat panel ones. We don't get t.v. reception or watch any live television but we do have Netflix. And this fancy new set-up has some sort of direct connection to Netflix, which means we can watch any video we want, practically, on demand with their "instant queue" thing. So I downloaded a video of "Calliou" and the next thing you know the kids have had their first video watching experience today.

I figure they are old enough to have the occasional video every now and then. They are almost 3. One or two a week probably wouldn't hurt them (I hope this doesn't become a slippery slope sort of thing, but I see how it could). Calliou seems good in that it centers around family life and story lines that the kids are interested in, and there isn't any violence or name calling that I have seen yet.

Reading books is another good way to help the kids be calm and less cranky, so we do a lot of that together too when they are having a tough time. But I have to admit that there is a part of me that thinks, hmmm, if they watch a video then maybe I could actually get something done during that half hour! Like make dinner! (And....slippery slope).

I haven't had t.v. reception in the last 6 and a half years. I don't miss it. I do still watch things on Netflix, and there are currently two t.v. shows that Jake and I like to watch through Netflix: 30 Rock, and Mad Men. We can only do this once or twice a week because most nights I have to grade or do other work, but it is fun when we do it. (I'm also totally in love with both of those shows, they are both so awesome in totally different ways). The biggest thing that I like about not watching network t.v. is that I don't have commercials in my life. I really don't like the influence that advertising exerts over me personally (it tends to make me feel fat, old, unfashionable, shlubby, hungry, etc.) so I am a happier person without it. I'd rather not have commercials in the kids' lives, either. The longer we can go without them being aware of or caring about stupid princess crap, theme characters, fast food, sugary cereals, etc., the better. I know it won't last forever as they get more exposure from their friends, but the less it's in our house, the better I feel.

That said...a video every now and then won't kill 'em, right? That's the philosophy I'm going with.