Boob Tube

There are a few things rolling around in my head today as I'm returning to my normal scatter-brained working mom self. But, I wanted to take a moment to confess one of my vast imperfections.

Ready?

I like TV. My kid likes TV. We watch TV. Probably too much of it. We watch it as a family, though. That should count for something, shouldn't it? In the realm of things that I could be doing to screw up my kid, I feel like this isn't at the top of the list. It's not like I'm teaching him how to weigh out a dime bag or shove merchandise in his diaper or something. We just watch TV. I even wait until he's asleep to partake of Jersey Shore. I know that I mentioned that before, but that place is just like a train wreck--you know it's a hot mess, but you just can't look away! We stick to kids programming mostly while he's up, and he really doesn't watch gobs of it.

Some of the tastiest words that I've eaten lately have involved Dora. I'm sure that I made some crack at some point about the annoyingness of Dora the Explorer and how that would never play in my home. Because, really, that "Doo doo doo doo Dora..." song is pretty friggin annoying. But, as far as kids shows go, it really isn't that bad. Actually, *gulp* I rather like it. And, Joseph likes it. It has created a couple of interesting scenarios, though.

For starters, he's going to be 3 at Thanksgiving. While he's a little chatterbox and pretty much speaks constantly from the moment he gets up until he talks his kitties to sleep at night, he sounds like a little kid. He's missing some notable sounds still (j's, l's, and k's at the beginning of words, for example) and it takes a moment for the unaccustomed ear to decipher his ramblings. One of those educational things that Dora does is infuse Spanish into her explorations. Well, considering that it periodically takes 3 repetitions of the same phrase to decipher "juice" from "shoes" (I know, you'd think that the context would be a giveaway, but "I don't want ___!" or it's partner "I want___!" can lead you astray) in English, you can imagine what this is doing to our conversations.

And, something that I just get a kick out of is when Joseph starts screaming at the TV. Dora and Boots tell him to "Say, 'MAP!'," so he does. He ends up shrieking when they tell him to say it louder. Please reference the Spanish language portion of this post to help you imagine my confusion at some of the things that they tell him to say. Perhaps the most obnoxious part is that I end up with their traveling song stuck in my head ("Come on, Vamanos! Everybody, let's go!") for hours after wards.

Then there's the part where Matt's head blows up just a little bit. I need to preface this all by saying that Matt is a great dad. But, we weren't even out of the doctor's office before he was on the phone to spread the word that "It's a boy!" He only freaked out a little bit when I put nail polish on him. It was blue, and it was just on one finger. And, when I sent him the picture of Joseph in blue high heels at the shoe store, he confessed to wearing his mom's shoes (once he stopped shrieking, I think). So, when Joseph started telling Daddy about Dory and I had to clarify that it was Dora as in The Explorer, and not Dory as in the Ellen DeGeneres fish from Nemo, his initial response was along the lines of that being a girl's show. To his credit, he never said that to Joseph and he hasn't said it again. He even brought him a Dora cup from the cookout that we were at when they ran out of juice boxes and he was thirsty for the car ride home. It has since become one of the boy's favorite cups in all of its pink and purple glory. It's fun to watch my football-loving, grease-monkey, beer-drinking, man's man of a husband swallow his pride and turn on Dora on demand for his little boy.

However it rolls, we've broadened our horizons and welcomed the Dora and Boots into our homes. Any other thoughts on that dynamic duo? Or, what do you partake of that you had previously sworn off?