TV-aholic

Hello. My name is Elijah and I am a TV-aholic.

It’s all our fault. Once Luca (you may call him “Duke,” but not “Puke-a”) came into our lives, we started relying more and more on the Babysitter 2000, otherwise known as TV. Eli would wake up, usually coinciding with Luca needing to be fed and he’s ask, “Can I watch TV?” Well, sure. It kept him occupied and relatively quiet for a couple hours.

But as Luca required more and more of our attention, Eli’s viewer ship went through the roof. What was once a regulated 2 hours per day max has devolved into an almost constant din of TV in our living room.

Now, we don’t let him watch the Playboy Channel, or worse yet, Lifetime (Fox News was way too easy). He watches commercial-less Curious George shows and Pixar movies.

However, Diana and I are worried that it just isn’t good for him. Studies that I am too lazy to look up probably say it can affect his attention span and his ability to, you know, communicate and stuff.

But I’m worried he’ll join the ranks of the morbidly obese. That years from now people will come from miles around to watch him wash himself with a rag on a stick (Thank you Simpsons episode 3F05. I wasn’t too lazy to look up that reference).

So we’ve begun re-instituting the TV turn off after his 2 hour limit. This has not gone over well. Aside from the tantrums and complete flip outs, Eli asks, “Can I watch TV?” every 3.1 seconds. I channel every father since the invention of the television when I say, “You have a room full of toys. Go play.”

Slowly but surely, he’s weaning off the boob tube. Why, two nights ago I actually caught him using his imagination with his toy jungle animals and explorers. Granted, he was pretending the two explorers using their jeep to go to Starbucks to get apple juice. But I’ll take it.