Got TV?
I love playgroups. I get to send the peanut off to climb on whatever she can find while I catch up on my communication skills with the other moms. At home vocabulary inevitably regresses to whatever sound combination the impling is having fun with at the moment.
"Bah bah bah bah bAHHH
Doodoodoodoodooodoo
dij dij dij dijooh ah ah
bithabithabithabitha
dagjadagjadagja
aaaaaaananananananananah
jibba jibba jibba jibba jibba
hiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiiyi"
well, SHE knows what she's saying.
So I clear the cobwebs out of my brain for an hour or so and put sentences together with actual nouns, verbs, and if I'm feeling crazy, an adjective or two. Inevitably, conversation almost always turns to the peanuts. We compare notes about how and what they are eating, how and where they are sleeping, if they are cruising or walking or (like the impling) climbing.
And then, television comes up. And suddenly I am listening to a foreign language. I can't even remember any of the shows that were brought up in conversation...something to do with reality weddings, I think. As an illustration of what an ignoramous I am when it comes to the pop scene, someone once told me that Jennifer Garner received a Stokke for a shower present, and, not making the connection between the name and an actor, I said what a great present it was, how she would love it (happy owner of Norwegian designed stroller here) and left it at that. I thought she was a friend of my friend.
Now, of course, I know she's a famous actor, and she's married to another famous person (I knew at one point, but it's not coming to mind at the moment) but beyond that...
The reason for my ignorance is simple. First, I haven't seen any of the movies she's been in, but more to the point, I don't watch television. Of course, as soon as I said that, I got the impression I had:
a. suddenly grown a second head
b. revealed myself as a complete and utter elitist snob
c. lived with my head up my ass for the past 10 years or so.
To compound the problem, I don't read tabloids, or even the entertainment sections of the paper regularly (I prefer go to the movies not knowing the ending thank you very much). So references to anything vaguely (or directly) related to tv are lost on me.
It wasn't always this way. Years ago, we had cable. There was no reception of anything without it...a current phenomenon as well. We watched the original Iron Chef, Homicide (best show EVER), the cartoon network for fixes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Dexter's Laboratory, Beakman and the Animaniacs.
Then the Hub went to med school. And suddenly, a graphic designer's salary wasn't going to pay for all the lovely things we'd grown used to with two salaries. Something had to go. Together, we made the choice. DSL would stay. Cable was history. So no high minded holier-than-thou inspiration to stop watching tv. It was simple. We couldn't afford it. We could, however, eventually afford, with the help of a handsome tax return, a wide screen television.
Now, after almost 7 years without tv, we could probably get a basic service for 8 bucks a month. But we haven't even talked about it. We don't miss it at all. We always prefered movies to the dreck that was on anyways. So eventually, we got a subscription to Netflix so we could watch all those movies that are impossible to get to now with a 15 month old, and I can occasionally zone out with reruns of MASH and Star Trek. On MY schedule.
Still, it feels like I'm coming out of the closet when I tell people we don't have cable. I'm told it's very helpful for distracting the tot for dressing them in the morning, and having wrestled the impling into her clothes while simultaneously going on safari around the apartment, I can sympathize. As it is, we have a large gate effectively dividing our front room into Impling and non-Impling zones. And the tv is in the non-Impling zone.
Crazy woman that I am, the Impling won't be watching any tv, dvds, or videos for the first 24 months of her life a la advice of the American Acadamy of Pediatrics. At least, not on purpose. Inevitably she sees tv at the supermarket, or when she visits relatives who won't turn the damn thing off. The reason, simply, is that Baby Einstein is a crock of shit, and I don't want a 3 year old asking me for Polly Pockets or whatever annoying girly toys they have invented to make sure they all turn into mindless little capitalistic money grubbing monsters. Not that I feel strongly about this or anything.
Besides. She has so much fun just playing with her books, rubber gloves, broken computer mice, and the random empty box, she hardly has time for her toys. Let alone the boob tube.
"Bah bah bah bah bAHHH
Doodoodoodoodooodoo
dij dij dij dijooh ah ah
bithabithabithabitha
dagjadagjadagja
aaaaaaananananananananah
jibba jibba jibba jibba jibba
hiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiiyi"
well, SHE knows what she's saying.
So I clear the cobwebs out of my brain for an hour or so and put sentences together with actual nouns, verbs, and if I'm feeling crazy, an adjective or two. Inevitably, conversation almost always turns to the peanuts. We compare notes about how and what they are eating, how and where they are sleeping, if they are cruising or walking or (like the impling) climbing.
And then, television comes up. And suddenly I am listening to a foreign language. I can't even remember any of the shows that were brought up in conversation...something to do with reality weddings, I think. As an illustration of what an ignoramous I am when it comes to the pop scene, someone once told me that Jennifer Garner received a Stokke for a shower present, and, not making the connection between the name and an actor, I said what a great present it was, how she would love it (happy owner of Norwegian designed stroller here) and left it at that. I thought she was a friend of my friend.
Now, of course, I know she's a famous actor, and she's married to another famous person (I knew at one point, but it's not coming to mind at the moment) but beyond that...
The reason for my ignorance is simple. First, I haven't seen any of the movies she's been in, but more to the point, I don't watch television. Of course, as soon as I said that, I got the impression I had:
a. suddenly grown a second head
b. revealed myself as a complete and utter elitist snob
c. lived with my head up my ass for the past 10 years or so.
To compound the problem, I don't read tabloids, or even the entertainment sections of the paper regularly (I prefer go to the movies not knowing the ending thank you very much). So references to anything vaguely (or directly) related to tv are lost on me.
It wasn't always this way. Years ago, we had cable. There was no reception of anything without it...a current phenomenon as well. We watched the original Iron Chef, Homicide (best show EVER), the cartoon network for fixes of Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Dexter's Laboratory, Beakman and the Animaniacs.
Then the Hub went to med school. And suddenly, a graphic designer's salary wasn't going to pay for all the lovely things we'd grown used to with two salaries. Something had to go. Together, we made the choice. DSL would stay. Cable was history. So no high minded holier-than-thou inspiration to stop watching tv. It was simple. We couldn't afford it. We could, however, eventually afford, with the help of a handsome tax return, a wide screen television.
Now, after almost 7 years without tv, we could probably get a basic service for 8 bucks a month. But we haven't even talked about it. We don't miss it at all. We always prefered movies to the dreck that was on anyways. So eventually, we got a subscription to Netflix so we could watch all those movies that are impossible to get to now with a 15 month old, and I can occasionally zone out with reruns of MASH and Star Trek. On MY schedule.
Still, it feels like I'm coming out of the closet when I tell people we don't have cable. I'm told it's very helpful for distracting the tot for dressing them in the morning, and having wrestled the impling into her clothes while simultaneously going on safari around the apartment, I can sympathize. As it is, we have a large gate effectively dividing our front room into Impling and non-Impling zones. And the tv is in the non-Impling zone.
Crazy woman that I am, the Impling won't be watching any tv, dvds, or videos for the first 24 months of her life a la advice of the American Acadamy of Pediatrics. At least, not on purpose. Inevitably she sees tv at the supermarket, or when she visits relatives who won't turn the damn thing off. The reason, simply, is that Baby Einstein is a crock of shit, and I don't want a 3 year old asking me for Polly Pockets or whatever annoying girly toys they have invented to make sure they all turn into mindless little capitalistic money grubbing monsters. Not that I feel strongly about this or anything.
Besides. She has so much fun just playing with her books, rubber gloves, broken computer mice, and the random empty box, she hardly has time for her toys. Let alone the boob tube.
Comments
Unfortunately, most of these women are moving away, to Miami, to Indonesia, to South Africa. So it goes.
mom101: I had to look that up! Sounded like a cough suppressant to me. Good name for a rapper though.