The Family Bean Counter

Collin doesn't know this yet, but he lives a terrible life. He has never met Dora, Spongebob, Elmo or The Wiggles. He doesn't know how to get to Sesame Street or where in the world Carmen Sandiego is. And, he's never heard that there's this freaky purple guy that loves him.

I know that makes my life only temporarily pleasant. By that, I mean two things: I also have not had to become intimately familiar with these creatures and their inane songs; but also, I have not had to become acquainted with the following refrain, "Jimmy/Johnny/Chloe's mom lets them watch t.v. whyyyyyyyyyy can't I?"

See, we don't watch t.v. in our house. None. Zip. Zilch during Collin's waking hours. And, truthfully, we don't watch much when he's asleep either. We don't even have cable and we have a barely functioning antenna.Up until about two weeks ago, I don't think he was aware that the flat screen mounted on our wall was anything more than a really boring picture that really should be of him. As a younger baby, he was fascinated by watching a DVD slide show we had made of him and on occasion he'll point at the screen and ask for "bebe" still.

Recently though, I thought what they hey, he's getting older, let's try it. I don't know what I was thinking. The American Academy of Pediatrics says there's no benefit for t.v. for kids under two and we've been doing fine entertaining ourselves without it. And, I've never seen a kid so totally in love with his books as mine is. I get a lot of crap from some people about my vehemence with this no t.v. rule (that's why he's speech delayed, he needs "downtime," etc); but, I wanted to see if he'd even be interested.

Interested was an understatement. I flicked it on and it was like a tractor beam pulled him into the screen. His feet became suction-cupped within mere centimeters from the t.v. and he was immovable. Hands waved in front of his face were no distraction. I could have danced around naked, on fire and twirling ice cream cones offered in endless supply and he wouldn't have torn his attention away from whatever I'd turned on. Yeah, it went off. Almost immediately. After about ten minutes, I couldn't bear the glaze-eyed stare any longer.

Still, I feel for the burning desire for something that holds their attention like that for times when you are say, making dinner or wanting to, I don't know, go to the bathroom alone, or balance the checkbook.

We've adopted "the bean counter." Collin feels that he's doing something very important by moving all these beans from one bin to the other...and Mommy feels that while making dinner in almost complete silence, that world peace and order has been restored...until she has to clean up the beans that are all over the kitchen floor. Of course, it's a small price to pay to not whistle "how to get to Sesame Street" all night long and stare at the back of my kid's head over the couch.