October 31, 2006

Bad Parentwatch: My Daughter, The Junkie

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I am absolutely slammed at work, with a deadline for today. The kid's off to Grandma's for Halloween, but here is what she did yesterday:
Sesame Street
Sesame Street
Looked for the Wiggles, weren't on.
Read a dozen little animal magazines
Mister Rogers
Reading Rainbow, just half
Lunch
Played
Diego, [wtf Is this, Dora in drag?]
Blues Clues
nap, 30 min.
something else
Sesame Street at 5pm

and so on and so forth. By the time that fake Melanie dude came on, even my overworked heart was breaking to hear her literally begging, "Watch Sumpin! Watch Sumpin!"

She doesn't really watch that much TV, maybe an hour/day to take the edge off [she gave up her nap when preschool started]. But she's been sick over the weekend, but I fear yesterday, I pushed her across the line from 'sluggish' to 'slug" and doomed her to a life of supermarket cream pies on the couch or in a constant jones for the TV wall at Best Buy.

How does anyone get stuff done with a toddler around? Seriously.

8 Comments

"fake melanie dude"!!??

do not diss the *cough* genius *cough* behind bear and the big blue house and oobi's friend kako!!!

don't get me wrong - melanie is sorely missed over here by the paloma. but, c'mon give "the sub" a break! ;)

I've learned to do a lot of stuff with one arm - the arm which isn't holding my daughter.

You don't get any work done with toddlers around! Not until about 9 or 10 pm anyway. You're lucky if you find two free minutes to go to the bathroom during the day, especially if the little one doesn't follow you in there!

Soon, very soon, she will start to find ways to entertain herself. Does she 'read' or color, or tear little pieces of paper up yet. My daughter is five and when this starts to happen, some sense of normalcy returns. Though we just added another too the mix and normalcy is out the window again.

It's called a mute button. Sadly, God hasn't started putting one on the kids yet, but thankfully someone discovered them for the phone. If only my coworkers knew I was changing a narsty diaper (cloth, which meant swirling poo in the toilet afterwards, and on a 9 month old who knows how to wiggle) while phoned into our weekly staff meeting today.

[ah, right. I forgot. add The Upside Down Show to the list. if that thing takes off, a whole generation of parents will be looking to strangle whoever taught their little Jacksons to solve problems by pushing an invisible remote. -ed.]

I'm raising a contrarian view here, but you might find that if you pitched the TV all together you end up with a toddler who does a whole lot better at entertaining herself.

With manipulatives like pots and pans, wooden blocks, a train or other vehicles, a bear or doll or two, some dress up stuff and a ton of books a kid without TV will learn real early (like two) how to entertain herself, and the pay-off, for everybody, not least the kid, can be huge -- and last for years.

I raised the kid in blizzard-land, pretty much in the middle of nowhere. When there's three inches of snow outside and uncertain electricity, you'd better have a few tricks up your sleeve. Or hers. We didn't have a TV, so passive entertainment wasn't an option.

This might be a pretty tough road to take in the big city, but if you can swing it, the results are pretty cool. Makes the kid a lot more accepting of your work at home, too; she's busy, you're busy. All bets are off if she's feeling crummy, though. Sometimes parenting and deadlines are just totally incompatible . . .

Ours got plenty of TV when she was older, at the grandparents' and friends houses, but by then it was too late, and she never became committed to it.

Diego, [wtf Is this, Dora in drag?]

Yeah, and with a MUCH smaller head!

Uh . . . that's 3 FEET of snow outside. Three inches didn't show us nuffin' . . .

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