Boob Tube

(Really, it’s a great title.  It works on several levels.  I promise).

When Margaret went into the doctor’s office for her two-year-old checkup, her pediatrician was amazed that she didn’t watch any television, because although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that children under two watch no television, apparently this is a guideline that is rarely followed.

I pointed out that it was way too much trouble to show her any television, because we don’t really have one, but that she did watch videos of herself on my phone.  But secretly I felt that I had won a Gold Medal in the Parenting Olympics, and that there was now probably an annotation on Margaret’s chart about how she had good but smug parents.  Or at least parent.*

And then there was the Kindle Fire fiasco of 2011-2012.**

One of the nice things about the Kindle Fire is that it has a lot of video available free.  And one of the things that it has is a children’s show called “Yo Gabba Gabba”  that is less annoying that most. 

So there’s that.

Another development since Margaret’s appointment is that we have had this other baby thing that keeps wanting things like food.  And since she derives sustenance from me, feeding her tends to keep me stuck to the couch for the duration of her meal.  And since Leo has to go to work in order to fuel my unnecessary electronics habit, he isn’t around during the day.

And although Margaret adapted well to Ellie’s arrival, she did quickly become aware that a good way to get EXTREMELY NEGATIVE attention from me was to do something stupid like try to climb the back of a chair while I was feeding Ellie.

Something had to be done, and the televisual offerings appeared to me like a great, beautiful, probably grail-shaped beacon in the distance.

So now I feed Ellie before Leo leaves in the morning, but the mid-morning feeding involves Margaret watching a 20 minute show while Ellie munches, and then I do one of Ellie’s remaining Leo-absent feedings while Margaret naps, and then she watches another show during the other one. 

And it’s MARVELOUS.

She sits next to me on  the couch, and doesn’t do anything that could kill her or require stitches.

I’m still trying to work out, though, why she looks like she’s doing some sort of Zen meditation.

*There really should be that annotation on this blog, so lets just consider that noted.  Also, I am leaving Leo out of the smug part of that comment, not the good part.  just so we’re clear.

**This is a baby blog, so I’m not going to go into it here, but the long and short of it is that I got Leo a Kindle Fire for Christmas, preordering it in October because they were going on about how it was going to sell out, and then he saw Ron’s and sort of decided that he didn’t want one, but was being wishy-washy about it.  He made his decision, and I got  him a laptop instead (apparently he wanted fancy things like “keyboards” and “ability to produce word documents,” to which I say “Pfffft” and make rude gestures, but not where my mother can see them, so let’s pretend that that last bit doesn’t exist).  But there was Christmas, and then Leo not being home for weekends leading up to the baby’s birth, and I was ignoring things (like the blog) in order to cook massive batches of spaghetti sauce and organize and clean things, and I sort of forgot to return said Kindle Fire until after the time limit on returns had expired, and so we have a Kindle Fire.  Which, I might add, Leo uses every night, so it turns out that he DID want it, but apparently wanted a computer as well.  And who among us, if given the choice between a Kindle Fire and a laptop or a Kindle Fire, wouldn’t choose the both option?