When Aura was a newborn, I whiled away countless sleep-deprived hours holding her on the couch, watching TV and nursing and, you know, doing more holding. Once in a while I would wonder vaguely if this early exposure to television would result in a prematurely-TV-addicted child. Then I would calculate the number of hours I had slept in the past week, look at my ginormous, swollen, and in all honesty, kind of grotesque breasts, and think, Eh. Whatever. TV is goooood.
Turns out the bits of worrying here and there were for nought, since although Aura likes her a good show, she is far from hooked. Her fixation on certain shows, however, has caused me my fair share of insanity. First it was Elmo. Only Elmo. Not the rest of Sesame Street, despite my manic enthusiasm toward the Count and spirited post-show reenactments of Cookie Monster. But no. NO. ELMO ONLY. And so I listened to the theme song from “Elmo’s World” a billion times and saw parts of Mr. Noodle that no woman my age should ever witness. What I learned: Elmo is not particularly bright; if he was not a primary color, there is no way in hell he would be popular.
Then there was an abrupt–and thankfully short-lived–switch to Thomas and Friends. I would sit there watching with Aura, my brow furrowed as I struggled with the combination of Alec Baldwin’s oily narrator voice with thoroughly age-inappropriate “lessons.” (Example 1: If freight cars push you, the cheery engine, off the tracks, causing you to crash and burn, simply be thankful for the cranes who come to tow you home; my choice of interpretation to Aura: If some kid pushes you at the playground more than once, you take that bugger out. Example 2: If you are grumpy about your job and complain endlessly, you will shortly become a hero during the next landslide at the mine; my take: If I tell you to pick up your toys and you don’t, I will eat every single gummy bear in the package you picked out at Walgreens, SO HELP ME GOD.) What I learned: There is a good reason trains don’t speak; they’re as dumb as dirt. (See Elmo, above.)
Right around the time I realized the Thomas fixation was a wee bit out of control. (And yes. The train really did go around that actual, absurdly-overpriced little track.)
And then, for a full nine months, there was Dora the Explorer. And when I say there was Dora, I mean THERE WAS DORA. We no longer walked anywhere in peaceful contemplation; instead, every move was announced with ¡Vámonos!There were references, both while awake and asleep, to Swiper, Boots, Benny, Tico…the whole freakin’ jungle-lovin’ crew. The TiVo almost burned itself out recording and cross-referencing Dora episodes across three cable channels, prompting me to create a complicated series of DVR folders: Dora Episodes Aura Has Watched Already; Dora Episodes Aura Has Watched Already More Than Twelve Times But Must Be Kept Anyway; Dora Episodes That Are An Hour Long and Must Be Saved for Snow Days, Sick Days, and Early-Wine-Drinking Days, etc. But then, after months of brief, jungle-centric conversations in (admittedly pretty good) Spanish, Aura suddenly lost interest. That or she realized she had finally exhausted the Dora canon. Does it matter? One should not dwell too long on one’s good fortune. What I learned: If you count among your friends a shod monkey, the world’s dumbest cow, and a convertible-driving squirrel, it might be time to move to the city.
And so we arrive at present day. Coincidentally, we find ourselves teetering on the edge of the world’s longest mommyblog post. If you want the lowdown and life lessons of our current fave, Imagination Movers, come back soon. I’m suddenly busy: The TiVo light just came on and I so know it’s recording a quality CW show, like Gossip Girl or Vampire Diaries. While Aura might have questionable taste in programming, mine is impeccable.
(What I have learned from the CW: Everyone has the potential to be born into a ludicrously wealthy family. Oh, and have hair with the perfect amount of volume.)
