The baby who didn’t like TV

Anyone who has been reading for a while knows I’m (cough) pretty lax about the idea of kids and TV. Baby Einstein came crashing on to the scene just about the time Tristan was born, and I have fond memories of plopping him into his exersaucer and queuing up the Baby Mozart for 30 minutes of blissful diversion. We were equally charmed and perplexed by the boys’ addiction to the DVDs, and called them “baby crack”.

By the time Simon graduated from DVDs to broadcast TV, we had a dozen or so of the Baby Einstein DVDs kicking around — some of them even free enough of scratches, fingerprints and drool that they still play. Not that it does us any good. (As a side note, it’s kind of funny to look back and see what background TV each kid was exposed to. Tristan watched a lot of Trading Spaces on TLC when he was a baby, and Simon listened in on a lot of Tristan’s Bob the Builder and Thomas the Tank Engine shows. Lucas, on the other hand, gets a steady diet of Sponge Bob.)

Perhaps that has something to do with the fact that, in this house of four people who are hopelessly addicted to the electric nipple, Lucas shows absolutely no interest whatsoever in baby TV. And don’t think I haven’t tried. Little heretic doesn’t even make it through the first five minutes without fussing.

Scandalous, I know. It’s like Tiger Woods’ kid choosing a paintbrush over a golf club. A child of mine who doesn’t watch TV. Hmpfh.

There is good news, though. There is one thing he seems to particularly enjoy watching, sprawled out on his blanket in front of the TV. He is fascinated by Rock Band on the Wii, and will lie contentedly for long stretches, watching song after song as Mommy and Daddy rock out on the guitar and drums.

(I’d come back from washing my hands after a diaper change and he had inched his way over and grabbed hold of the whammy bar. Rock on, little dude!)

Related posts (automatically generated):

1. Baby TV comes to Canada The front page of the Citizen this morning had a big article about the pending arrival of BabyFirstTV, a new 24 hour TV network “devoted to babies six months to three years.” My only question: in the age of the ubiquitous DVD player, do we really need round-the-clock programming for...
2. In which we talk about Lucas’s other favourite boob Baby’s first smile, first laugh. The first time baby slept through the night. Baby’s first food, and the first meal baby feeds to himself. Baby’s first tentative steps, and baby’s first words. All milestones worthy of marking on the calendar, of noting, of celebrating. And now, finally, after a YEAR...
3. H1n1 vaccines, Canadian babies denied Baby Einstein refund, and other miscellany I read with interest the story in the media this weekend of how the Walt Disney Company is offering refunds on the purchase of Baby Einstein DVDs, after the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood challenged the idea that the DVDs were a teaching tool rather than simply brain candy for...
4. Canadian kids don’t count to corporate America Sheesh, as it if it weren’t bad enough that gullible Canadian parents have been excluded from the Baby Einstein refund offer, now comes news that Canadian parents aren’t included in the recently-announced recall of Maclaren strollers, even though the strollers are the same in both Canada and the US and...
5. Sling vs baby carrier In your comments on the post about how Lucas doesn’t like to be put down, a few of you mentioned how slings saved your life. I have a second-hand Baby Bjorn carrier that I used on and off for Simon, but Lucas doesn’t seem to like it. Mind you, we’ve...