Afternoon Calm

I hate to say it because for two years I managed to avoid it, but at the moment TV is a necessity around my house. For the first two years of my twins life, they watched no TV. I thought this was because I was doing such a great job of not letting them. I had heard that there was a correlation between ADHD and TV watching, so I really tried to avoid it. However, that doesn't mean that there was no TV on in the house. Instead, the TV was on with my shows and no cartoons.

We took a long driving trip to visit family and the the no cartoon phase of my life was over. There was a DVD player in the car we drove and from then on, they have been hooked on cartoons.

I can't say I was upset over this because at the time, I was pregnant and exhausted. I found the TV allowed me to get some down time from my extremely demanding 2 y/o twins. Then in the first few months of the new babies life, cartoons allowed me to figure out nursing while the twins were being entertained somewhat. (They certainly got in to their fair share of trouble despite the TV) Now as my 9 month old naps in the afternoon, I find that I turn the TV on to give myself a little 'me' time in the middle of the afternoon when I hit my afternoon slump at 3:00pm.

With our new baby, I see that sometimes he watches the TV and giggles at it. So I wonder if I really had anything to do with the no TV watching for the first two years of the twins lives, or was it the lack of cartoons. Or perhaps it comes down to personality. I find the new baby to be much more observant and extroverted than the twins were.

To conclude, I would just like to apologize for any ill thoughts I had of other moms who allowed their children to watch TV. I still envision the days when my house will be sans TV, but at the moment I just don't see it happening.