Kicking the Habit

For most of my life I have been a habitual television watcher. I cannot even start to tell you how many evenings and weekends I lost to movie marathons, nature shows, documentaries, reality shows and other regular programming. I love tv. And I had a lot of fun while I was pregnant sitting in front of the tube taking it all in. Now, a lot of people are going to be surprised by this, but; we are a one television household and we don't have cable. And still, I. love. my. tv.

But, after Corinne was born I realized for the first time that I really have a problem. During her first few weeks of life Brett & I often had the tv on for background noise, just to remind us that the world outside of our little family was still turning. Also, it was football season and Corinne seemed to enjoy watching the guys in the colorful uniforms run around on the screen (I am thrilled that it looks like we're going to add another football fan to the family). However, as Corinne got older and needed more stimulation or wanted some human interaction the tv became an issue. I would be engrossed in whatever lame show was on and my daughter would request (demand with the screaming) my attention and I would get irritated with her. I was irritated with my baby. Now that is messed up, my priorities were definitely out of whack.

I tentatively suggested to Brett that maybe we should move the tv out of the living room. I didn't want to get rid of it entirely, but I wanted it removed from the area where Corinne & I spent a large portion of our time. I was floored when he was completely supportive of the idea. I shouldn't have been so surprised, I mean back when we were planning to have a baby we talked about the fact that neither one of us wanted our children to grow up in front of the television. We want our kids to use their imagination, have physical play time and interact with their environment! It's not that we're banning tv, but we really want tv time to be special, not ordinary...a privilege, not a right.

And so about six months ago we moved our one and only television to our bedroom. And I really don't miss it. There are several evenings during the week when, after Corinne has gone to bed, you can find me snuggled up in my bed watching some of my favorite shows. But, even when I miss a show I don't get too bent out of shape since I can watch most of "my shows" on the internet the day after they're shown on the network. I also love the internet.