It has begun

When J was a toddler, I let him watch TV sometimes. I didn't really monitor the time or anything, but I know it wasn't much. Treehouse would be on for part of a show and then we'd go out to play or socialize or whatever. Maybe it's the fact that now that he's older, J's pretty obsessed with video games at times, but I tend to limit E's TV time a lot more.

E never watched a show of his own until he was 17 months. The TV during the day is only on for J's programs or games, and sometimes music (the Glee jukebox is awesome for dance parties!). When he was almost a year and a half, I thought it would be okay to put something on for him. He liked Thomas and had some exposure, although J has periods of Thomas-crazy interspersed with Thomas-who? so E's exposure wasn't much.

I put on Max and Ruby for E, because it was one of the only things available on Netflix. It was love at first sight. Within a day he knew how to say Max, and although he wasn't requesting it at first, he always stopped to watch it. It wasn't on much, maybe twice a week for twenty minutes each time. It became a favourite of E's and then of course, Netflix took it off their programming.

I tried some other shows, but not even Thomas holds E's attention as much as that mischievous little bunny. We decided to see if it was available on DVD, because J has so many movies and shows that E deserves his own favourite.

That was an oops too. We have had the DVD's for four days now, and E wants them morning, noon and night. He says "Max," repeatedly and searches for the shows. He even knows how to get the DVDs safely from their closed case to the Xbox, and turn them on through the menu. His memory for repeating what he sees will serve him well one day, but for now it makes it really hard to prevent him from getting what he wants.

He is an independent little guy. He watches me do something and wants to do it himself. Now that he's almost two, I think he's practising for "The Terribles." He will ask me for Max and most times I say no (I still like to limit the time they are in front of that magical box with moving pictures). Then he will get the DVD case and show me, just in case I missed the point the first time.When I prove to be thicker than the average mom, he just does it himself.

Now I'm glad he's so smart. He amazes me at what he can do by himself, simply from watching me go through the motions. However, I think that I need to stress the point a little more that no means no, and he has to wait for his TV time. That means a lot more tantrums, but I'm okay with that. Still, I hope that doesn't mean in ten years my boys will be fighting over the TV. I do know though, that neither one of them will ever have a TV in their room and there will always be a limit on how much they watch. Still, maybe I should have thought it through a bit more, because I never realized Max and Ruby were so captivating.