Rethinking the TV...

G-Man's favorite thing to try and get his hands on is the remote. Well, the remotes, actually. We have several of them.

"Give me the remote!"

He has grown and can reach the remotes wherever we put them. For example, if he can't get to them on the TV tray pictured above, he pulls the place mat off so the remotes fall on the floor. He's tricksy.

Which brings me back to the first picture. It gave me pause when I saw it. I know that kids at this age are fascinated with remotes, but I worry that when he gets the remote, he seems to know that he should point it at the TV and push the buttons. We must watch a lot of TV.

Now, I've tried to be careful about this. I don't have it on all the time when we are home. I did at first, just for noise. Then I realized how much he attended to the TV when it was on. Off it went. Especially during the day.

I watch the TV a lot more than I used to. When I was teaching in Utah, I didn't watch TV for 3 years. I was way too busy. I was working two jobs and performing in shows and trying to date and spend time with my family and fulfill my church callings. I did not have the time. Diggity and I started "24 Home Evening" with my family when we started dating. And we do watch several shows together, but it isn't like we are watching TV instead of doing something else - like knitting or reading - we really enjoy watching TV together.

But I'm starting to realize we need to be careful. I not only need to be careful about the time I spend watching (I think the American Idol posts have made me more sensitive to this. I found myself wanting to post about the TV I was watching.), but the shows that I watch. I don't want to watch things I wouldn't let G-Man watch as he gets older. I guess we'll be watching a lot of Food Network and HGTV as he grows up.

I'm glad we have Tivo. :)