"Elmo loves his goldfish, his crayon too!"

Well, after more than 22 months of keeping Jack away from TV, I have finally succumbed to the siren song of "Elmo's World" ("La la la la..."). We realized the potential usefulness of getting Jack interested in TV on our trip to Hawaii. It would have been so nice to have him quietly sit and watch a movie. But when we popped in the "Finding Nemo" DVD, he had no idea what he was looking at and couldn't have cared less. Five and a half hours is a LONG time to try and entertain a fussy, squirming toddler on your lap.

So I recently borrowed a bunch of "Elmo's World" and "Sesame Street" DVDs from the library. The first few times I put them in, Jack got really excited about seeing Elmo on the TV but then quickly lost interest. But each time I put the disc on, he would watch more and more. This morning, he woke up calling for Elmo. Once I put it on, he just sat on the couch with a mesmerized stupor on his face.

Uh-oh. I may have created a monster. And not a fuzzy red one.

One thing I'm struggling with is that Jack still won't let me do anything else while he's watching TV. On the one hand, I feel like this is a good thing, because at least we're still interacting and I'm not using the TV as a baby-sitter. On the other hand, I kind of think that, as long as the TV's on, it might as well baby-sit. It seems a little wrong to encourage my not-quite-two-year-old to sit like a zombie in front of the tube, but it would be nice to be able to get some stuff done without his "help." Not to mention, I don't particularly enjoy watching Elmo do the same schtick a million times.

As it is, I think I'll be hearing that theme song in my sleep for the next couple centuries...