What the boys watch:
- Dinosaur Train
- Bob the Builder
- Sesame Street
- various “how stuff is made” shows
- various house building/fixing shows
- YouTube videos, often of themselves
What the grownups watch:
- Daily Show / Colbert Report
- 30 Rock
- Community
- Up All Night
- Survivor / Amazing Race
- Eureka / Warehouse 13
- lots of home improvement TV
- random movies we stumble upon
What Jenn watches by herself
- So You Think You Can Dance!!
- Parenthood
- Friday Night Lights (on Netflix)
- The West Wing (over and over on DVD)
- new ballet shows! (Breaking Pointe, Bunheads)
When I was pregnant with Miles, I really wanted him to be a TV free baby. I knew all about negative influence of “screen time.” But in our home, TV is a way to unwind, and I’ve made my peace with it. I like to watch TV at the end of the day, Nathan likes to watch TV at the end of the day, and now, the boys usually enjoy an hour and a half or so between dinner and the time we take our family walk. They play so hard at school, and their days are so full of exploration and discovery, it seems their brains need a little down time, just like the grown ups do. We always watch together, and I’m very particular about what they see. Nathan has a fairly strict “one time through per day” rule, to prevent the same episode of the same show from playing over and over. I’ve learned a lot watching TV with the boys. A smidge of Spanish from Sesame Street...more facts about dinosaurs and the Mesozoic Era than I learned getting a Biology degree...how to parge a house...and lots of useful parenting phrases. In fact our most common request of Miles, “Can you think of a nice way to say that?” is a direct quote of Mr. Pteranodon.
The last hour of the day, when Nathan and I watch something from our grown up list of shows, that’s one of the few remnants of our “before kids” life. I love to curl up on our giant, family-sized couch, have the lights dimmed, plug in the laptop, and hear Jon Stewart make fun of the world.
