I Know I'm Not The Only One..

I, faintly, remember the days when I looked down on those who used the "one eyed monster" as a babysitter.

My own "warming" to the idea started in the 5th year of marriage when I was pregnant with our 5th child. We had not had a TV in our house previously, but a friend had loaned us a 7" screen/ VCR combo. I occasionally used it to entertain Homer (4) Marlene (3) and Jon (2) for 20-40 minutes in the evening while I cleaned up after supper. It was a time of "blessed quietness"!(Delphia, 9months or so, was generally sleeping on Homer's lap. He was a great one for rocking the babies!)

Over the years the screen has gotten slightly larger, though still small, and we can play DVDs as well. There are times I have overused it as an excuse for being lazy. But all in all I find it like everything else in life: Balance is the key, and balance is actually much harder than reverting to one extreme or the other.

So, anyway, today we had a little friend over who had not previously visited without his mom. There was some question as to how things would go but thanks to Dora and Diego we have found a common ground. 20 minutes of the overly cheerful, bilingual toddler plus some fruit snacks and they are off playing on their own and I am trying to find the house I KNOW is somewhere under all the piles!



One last note. Due to Delphia's former craze with all things Dora we have quite a few episodes of her show. Monday I had to take Jesse to U of I hospitals for the yearly check up on his leg. During a down time out doors Jesse stayed busy running back and forth on a rise in the sidewalk asking me, "Mom, what does ___________ mean?" He threw in various, I'm assuming, Spanish words. I did know what Amigo meant, but beyond that, I had no idea if he was even saying a real Spanish word or just making one up. I'm not real crazy about being the uni lingual parent of a bi-lingual child. We may have to nix that chipper chick!

P.S. I am trying to choose flooring, I found some I LOVE!!! Guess what, it's the most expensive out there! Go figure. It's hard to pick something else when you've seen your hearts desire. I just have to keep remembering the choke inducing price tag!