Tap, tap, tap...is this thing on?

Well, hell hath frozen over, I'm blogging.

Let me start from the beginning.  I live in middle America, literally, smack-dab.  I have two lovely, loving daughters.  Claire is 20 months and Zora is nearly 3 months.  I am a stay-at-home, work-at-home, domestic goddess extraordinaire.  I consider myself to be somewhat intellectual although the some of my most frequently used words would imply otherwise as I tend to add a "y" to end of most words these days.  What?  If you have kids, you know what I mean.  Here in middle America (which is nothing like Middle Earth, unfortunately) we have very long, irritatingly cold seasons.  So, we have to stay indoors for many, many months.  We run out of things to do by day, um, 2?

So, these kids I mentioned.  I really want them to go to Harvard or at the very least any state school other than KU.  What the f is a jayhawk anyway?  Be something respectable like a tiger or an alligator or even a bear.  I'm certain the only thing a jayhawk can do to you is shit on your car windshield.  Wait, it's not a bird?  Oh, that's right, I don't care.

Like any good mother I am a member of many spamming mommy sites that shall remain nameless because this blog doesn't have a budget for royalties.  So, I get emails with detailed information about how almost everything I own is either going to kill us or cause us to be sorely attention-defunct.  Some of them catch my eye.  Not in a positive way, but in the way that causes me to panic and toss half my pots and pans for fear of non-stick coating.  Some of them I ignore completely.  One of them caught my eye today, though.  It was an AAP study on how watching television affects children under 2.  My children are under 2, so I read on.  Now, these studies pretty much always tell you no TV is best, but limited TV is okay if you must.

Here's where shit gets real, people.  I let my kid (the baby doesn't really watch much but her own limbs at this point) watch way too much TV.  So much so that I am embarrassed by it.  I admit it, Claire loves Sprout, the 24 hour PBS affiliated kids' channel.  She's a zombie-esque Sprout-aholic.  They have all sorts of educational shows on this channel and it's on basically every morning in our house...and maybe every night.  She loves the Wiggles, Roary the Racing Car, Play With Me Sesame, Caillou, not so much Dive Olly Dive, and Thomas.  My child has more "programs" than a 70 year old cat lady.  I will ease up on myself a bit and say that she doesn't just sit and watch them, eh-hem Caillou, but she does pause for a minute or 5 to see what Bert is counting today, etc.  So, if your reaction to any of the preceding statements was, "Wow, what a terrible mother."  Get the f off my blog.  If it was something less than that, you can stay...for now.

Anyway, today I read that my kid is 9% more likely to be a bully because of this TV watching.  What?!  I'm single-handedly creating a bully with Sprout?  I'm not sure I buy it.  However, I'm done with letting Claire watch TV.

I plan to chronicle the next weeks, months, etc of how this goes for me.  I hope that other moms will be able to sigh that sigh of relief when they realize that other moms let their kids watch too much TV, eat sugar, stay up too late, and generally f up all while truly trying to create an outstanding future member of society.  This is my journey as I try to fix one thing...one thing that very well may not be broken.

Endnote:  This is in no way a condemnation of other moms who let their kids watch tv, eat sugar, plan jewelry store heists, whatever.  This is my personal choice.  I have spent way too much time feeling judged by other moms to do that to any of you reading this.