…and have my kids fallen squarely into that definition?  I was so nuts when the oldest was little to not let her watch ANY. I returned all the Baby Einstein CD’s and didn’t put it on at all. She knew Elmo, from books etc, but when we took her to see Elmo Live for her 2nd Birthday she hadn’t ever actually seen the show. So we started down the slippery slope right after that.

She watched ONLY the 20 or so minutes of Elmo during Sesame Street. Then, all 3 of them went to stay with my parents for a week and my Dad, when left in charge solo, let them watch the whole thing every day. And then that became oh, so easy…And then when I wanted to work out on the treadmill I’d put HGTV on, and she’d watch. (That was a compromise from when she’d want to watch Animal Planet and I’d have to watch snakes while working out which infuriated me…I may have blogged about that already. I may actually have blogged about too much tv already but that just shows it’s an issue I’m constantly nagging myself about).

Ok so now, we’re at the point where:

Exhibit A: We went out last week to do errands; in response to being told we’re on the way to Lowe’s, she said “Let’s Build Something Together”.

Exhibit B: Some Burger King commercial was on (I think?) where some 70’s guy is getting all his clothes thrown out the window and two guys are singing at him and though she was otherwise engaged, she said, IN PERFECT TIME with the ad, “Ha – Ha – Ha”. Showing she’d seen it/heard it once. Or twice…before. She also is consistently shouting “Five Dollar Footlongs”, an ad that plays over and over during FOOTBALL…in fact, football is where she gets most of her material. She’s not actually watching it, it’s just on all day Sunday. So maybe I can make myself feel better thinking that she’s not watching too much tv, it’s just that the ads are a part of her environment, invading her subconscious in the same way that “Saved by Zero” plays over and over in my head as I try to sleep…

Exhibit C: The twins, EVERY time I say I have to do a quick call, immediately jump on the couch yelling “Can we watch Bob?” Bob the Builder has in the past proven to be a top-notch babysitter in a 20 minute pinch but only once. Or twice…

Exhibit D: One twin – they are 3 – asks us to “Pause it, I have to go pottie” at least once a night  during the news. The NEWS. 

Exhibit E (I fear I am making my case through these exhibits): At Target, the other day, the oldest, upon looking at Sham-Wow or some comparable product said “MOMMY. These are NOT AVAILABLE IN STORES. Why did they say that on tv if it’s here? Were they LYING?” (She’s very into who’s LYING – said quite momentously – these days).

Let’s not talk about how all of them can work the cable and regular remote, including on-demand, like it’s an appendage on their body. One of my girlfriends had had it. NO MORE TV in her house. God Bless her. I have firmly said no video games and feel virtuous in that denial.And I am currently comforting myself with the new trend – the oldest has learned to read, well enough that she can even read to the twins and they’ll put up with it. So, if I can just convince them that that’s AS good as Bob for babysitting, I’ll be all set. I’m trying to tilt the balance in my favor by giving almost nothing but books for Christmas. Of course the round of TV Holiday specials isn’t going to help… 

But my children are working on making inside, delightful. Similar to many big-box discounters and department stores, they have jumped both feet in to the holiday season (shortly after Halloween) by blasting Christmas music and pulling out all the Christmas books. Ironically, they also greet every single display of Christmas decorations with shouts of “It’s not even Christmas yet”.   

I remember in college one of my friends instituted a “No holiday tunes until after Thanksgiving” rule, to combat a 24 hour loop of “Carpenters Christmas Portrait”. I’ve tried to live by that rule for decorating and music etc myself–though just, as the last couple years, having been stuck without extended family, I’ve turned Black Friday into Decorating Friday here and put everything up on that day. What I like about it is that then I can enjoy everything for the whole pre-Christmas season and then two days after Christmas, when I’m OVER IT, I can pull it all down and put it away having enjoyed it for a while. 

As the news is so dreary and depressing, it’s fun to have something else to focus on. I haven’t started baking yet but that’s surely around the corner. The kids are making their lists–one wants only scissors from Santa. We told her she was too little and she said “But I won’t swallow them”. So now that’s all she’s asking for. 

It’s definitely escapism as I’ve completed my holiday shopping but can’t commit to doing anything else “real” on my to-do list but as I often remind myself in being a mom it’s just about getting through the days smiling, sometimes–so I’m not swallowing my scissors and baking away and forgetting about the bad economy, for a bit. Maybe by the time I tune back in it will all be better. 

This is (obviously) not a political blog but our house has become quite the political hotbed with party lines being drawn in unpredictable (or predictable??) places. 

Let me preface this by saying that I watch the news every night at 6:30 (I tivo it so sometimes it’s 6:40, sometimes 6:45…) and I’ve done so since the oldest mini-voter was bitty. In fact, when at the pediatrician’s with my 1 week old twins and my 20 month old prodigy my pediatrician was SHOCKED when mini-prodigy looked up at the doctor’s screen-saver and said “White House”.  In response to my question of “Who’s the President?”  our early activist knew (without judgement) “George Bush”.

*Note: there is a far longer story here involving me attending a conference 35 weeks pregnant with twins, wearing clogs and only clogs due to unacceptably swollen legs and ankles,  allowed to go to DC only if I delivered a signature from keynote Newt Gingrich to my OB/GYN. Vague guidelines about “Get on a train if you feel uterine activity” were advised; to this day I don’t know what that means. I delivered not a signature but a full-fledged letter. I also delivered my twins 1 day early so he did NOT deliver them, being still on vaca. As far as “uterine activity”–I had ‘em 1 hour after walking into the hospital–any getting on a train would have meant twins delivered in Delaware, had they been born a week earlier than they were. However, this opened a whole political dialogue between my OB, my pediatrician, me, and occasionally the oldest princess which tends to border on weird.

Ok–so my kids are aware of what’s going on. I mean, they don’t watch the news–they quasi-watch it and get scolded through “THIS IS MOMMY’S TIME” for a lot of it. Did I mention 6:30, news time, is a tradition in my family? A tradition involving snacks and a glass of wine?? So that’s in part why I’m fairly tied to it. Brian Williams=Learning + Glass O’ Wine.

But they pick up a lot. I heard on the Today Show the other day this election is the perfect chance to teach our children about our differences, about what’s going on, and such. I’m not sure my kids are picking up “let’s agree to disagree, let’s discuss”. In fact, when today the oldest saw our local bank (her favorite) had been bought out  and so she might not be able to convert change to cash without a commission–she cracked herself up after saying “That bank is taking my money, is that Barack Obama?” She DOES listen to her daddy!

And true to partisan lines, one twin who’s been engaged in some obscure land-war with her daddy, involving no rules or reason but resulting in lots of “I WANT MOMMY” demands, is fully supporting Obama in our informal straw poll. Said poll was conducted when we got our “sample ballot” and tried to figure out if we were for or against the $10 million bond for our town. The oldest, who can now read to our detriment (we can’t spell around her, send confidential emails–or in fact any emails–without her reading them) read through the ballot and yelled “I’m voting John McCain” and then polled siblings and parents. 

WHAT am I going to do when I take her to the polling spot and they refuse to let her pull the trigger? I mean, her father claims he’s voting for himself, so arguably she could take his vote–but they simply won’t let her. She’s 4 1/2, so that’s fairly understandable.

All I’m saying is I can’t wait till the elections are over so we can go back to normal. Discussions of Elmo’s social policy, for example.

Go politics.