I LOVE Girls…..

There is a new HBO series named GIRLS that has actually taken me in and spun me around in a tizzy for weeks..Judd Apatow has brought along some amazing female writers to create a weekly space for the subconscious thought.

It is this experience that has led me to a period of grieving….why can't I do this.  Why can't I sit down, lock myself in a room for a year and regurgitate my most inner thoughts and experiences …. And of course create an engaging and thoughtful HIT show.

Okay so the premise… a coming of age series where a 20 something collective struggles with fear, hope, love and sex of everyday life….with lovely outfits and an awesome sound track to boot.  I love mixed tapes!!!!!!  

So here is my thought for all of the momma's out there….lets do this.

Let's start out own collective of narratives, about all of our fears, what we want to be, how we want to love and be loved and how we want to have sex or not have sex. 

I am so tired of the same old…everyone comparing, bragging, prentending…. Lets be who we are ….and share the narratives about what we want to be about and who we actually are and who we can possibly can be.

GIRLS…  

-Gray Mama

Elmo?

One day while shopping, we rounded the corner to find a pile of Sesame Street
books on display. W yelled “El-moo! El-moo!” and voraciously hugged the books.
Every last book got an individual hug.

It was adorable and… confusing. I don’t think my husband and I had ever said the
word “Elmo” to W. We had never watched more than a few isolated minutes of Elmo
here and there on the computer, so I was stumped. Then it hit me – Daycare! They
must be talking about Branded Characters in daycare. I work in Kid’s Entertainment
so this is how I think, “the machine had hold of him”

I am painfully aware of the power of Dora and Cookie Monster and Thomas the Tank
Engine (mainly because they steal all our market share!). I have watched countless
nephews spend hours talking about The Wiggles; I know the slope is very, very
slippery. To the extent that I will purposely rename characters in a story to avoid W
knowing their Brand Name. (I know, over the top behavior).

So, a few days later I remembered to ask the beloved daycare teacher if they talk
about Elmo at daycare. “Oh yes,” she said, “The children LOVE Elmo. We have two
Elmo books and I have to hide them when I am not reading them because they will
fight over them. One is a toilet training book and it makes noise.” She didn’t hide
that they talk about the Branded Character. She was proud of it. Elmo is serving a
purpose – reading AND toilet training. Two things I happen to feel very strongly
about instilling in my boy.

My husband thinks the way W says “El-moo” is so cute he rushed to the store and
bought the toilet training Elmo book AND an Elmo doll that says shapes and colours
when you push where his little monster heart should be. I am not exaggerating
when I say W runs on the spot with excitement at the appearance of these items but
still prefers the book.

In my quest to make myself feel better about this Elmo love, I watched the
documentary; Being Elmo and it made me feel a bit better. Elmo’s job is to share love and make kids feel safe and happy. (I’m paraphrasing but that is the message I took away from the film).

Elmo book is now a part of bedtime routine and as I write this W is sleeping with the
Elmo open book under his face. (I usually sneak in and steal it at some point).
Do I love that W loves Elmo? No. Yes. I don’t care. It depends on the day. And how
tired I am.

-Tightrope Mama

“Watch TV?”

“Baby Ba-goo-ga”

J-man and I had a couple of weeks off with various illnesses, and during that time TV and CDs saved my life. As a daycare baby, he’s used to a very active environment, so he was literally climbing the walls, and sick to boot. But...if you can hold off on TV, do, and if you can’t, just see how fast it changes your life.

Children’s programming is designed to hook kids immediately, and then they learn to recognize all the toys and crap that goes with it. I can’t even walk past a toy store without J-man rhyming off his favourites: dinosaurs, tools, Mickey...the list goes on.

The worst consequence of introducing TV is that J-man now says “Watch TV?” every time we come into the house. The next thing he says is “Tree hus” (Treehouse, which is a channel). He also says “Barney,” “Mickey Mus” (mouse), and “Hanny man” (Handy Manny — a Mr. Fix-It who has talking tools).

If I don’t give in, he will either just walk up to the television and turn it on himself, not that he can find the channel, unless it was the last thing we watched. The alternative is that he will point to the CD player and say “Baby Ba-goo-ga” (beluga), which generally gets me out of TV time, but only for that one song, and then he’s back to “Watch TV?” We distract him with a lot of music and ensure he doesn’t have TV time every day. But if I said he asks for it five times a day, I would not be exaggerating.

He claps when Chuggington comes on — a cartoon with talking trains (very similar to Thomas) — and loves Bert and Ernie’s Great Adventures. Both are “shorts” on Treehouse On Demand, which means they are under ten minutes. If you have a TV addict who, like mine, is under two, these are slightly more tolerable then an entire program and just might give them the fix they need. The good news is J-man’s attention span is still short.

J-man is 18 months old, and Saturday morning cartoons is already a thing in my house —
I guess it’s the influence of an 11-year-old older brother. Next we will be dealing with video
games, which for the moment happen only in the basement and mostly out of sight. I’d like
to say J-man’s never seen one, but one day I had to fold laundry and asked his brother to let
J-man sit and watch him play for just a minute. Next thing I know, J-man had an unplugged
remote and was frantically pressing buttons. Predictably, that ended in tears.

-Sleepwalking Mama

See, Television WILL Turn Your Baby into a Teen Mom! Maybe.

Here are a couple of articles on the evils of television for babies. The research isn’t conclusive, but it’s still pretty worrying, so you make your own call, okay?

“The truth about TV & ADHD: Is watching TV linked to a rise in attention deficit
hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)?” Nicole Sprinkle, ADDitude, February/March 2005.

Researchers at Children’s Hospital in Seattle found that the more TV toddlers watch, the
more likely they’ll be to develop attention problems. Their study had flaws, and did not find a
connection between television and ADHD specifically, but follow-up studies did find that the
children in the study who had watched a lot of TV as toddlers had problems in school.

“The effects of fast-paced cartoons” Dimitri A. Christakis, Pediatrics, September 12, 2011.
Authored by one of the researchers in the study noted above, this is a commentary on a
recent study, “The Immediate Impact of Different Types of Television on Young Children’s
Executive Function,” that compared the effects of fast-paced cartoons versus slow-paced
cartoons versus colouring on children’s ability to follow complicated commands and delay
gratification and such. For a more parent-friendly take on the study, check out Seattle
Mama Doc’s blog post, “Fast-Paced Media and 4 Year-Olds: Cartoons on the Brain”.

“Watching television harms toddlers", says psychologist Sarah Hall, The Guardian, April 24, 2007.  A British psychologist believes that allowing toddlers to watch an hour and a half of television a day could lead to problems such as obesity, ADHD, and autism. Not to mention that children who are left with only a TV for company for long stretches can lack social skills.

-East End Mama