We don't watch a lot of television around here. Keith and I haven't had a TV during our seven years of marriage, and we prefer it that way. There are a few shows that we keep up with online after the kids are asleep... The Office, 30 Rock, and sometimes House, if you really want to know... but in general we just don't have time for it and really don't miss it.
So our little ones haven't watched television much, if ever. Their only real exposure to movies has been in the nursery at church [about which I am going to refrain from ranting for now, but yes, that does rankle me]. Their imaginations are so lively these days that I *almost* never ever wish that I could plop them in front of a TV.
*Almost* never ever wish it, that is, except when I have just ten more minutes of preparations necessary so that we can get out the door and go out of town for the day. Then they get clingy, and I get exasperated because I just.need.ten.minutes!! So sometime in the last month or two, I turned to YouTube in desperation. Yes, YouTube! A totally scary place, if you ask me, replete with awful images if you type in just slightly the wrong thing or allow the commercials to begin. But I had saved a cute video to show the kids in just such a moment as this. And so to the
Sound of Music in Antwerp Station we have turned.
Rilla has now fallen in love with this video. And by that I mean that she asks to watch it about twice a week, which is like going from zero to sixty in the TV-watching category. I say yes once every few weeks. Fortunately it's only four minutes long, perfect for watching two times through while I finish the last-minute details of getting ready on those days when I really could use a brief, not-me source of entertainment. Abraham can only handle watching it one time through before he has maxed out his video-watching tolerance, but Rilla watches it twice through, and that buys me time to get ready if I scramble. I have decided that I can handle this level of compromise.
(Two minutes in and already glazed over.
This is why we don't do TV in our house!
But aren't they so cute together in one chair?)
The most noticeable effect of watching this video is that we have become Do-Re-Mi singers. Rilla loves to sing exuberantly and often, and now that we have practiced this song a sufficient amount, she belts it out confidently. Like, she did it in Costco last week. She's also working on the dance moves. I would love to take a video of her cute two-year-old dance moves but I don't want to make her shy about busting a move when she feels so inclined. (And I am pretty sure she would stop doing it if I ran for the camera when she started dancing.) But trust me. It's great. Abraham has been building up some pretty cute dance moves lately too, but usually when we sing "I'm a Little Teapot" or "Father Abraham"... he's only got the "do" part down to Do-Re-Mi.
Oh, and the other great part of this whole finally-letting-them-watch-a-video thing is that I totally cried when we watched the Antwerp clip for about the first seven times. Yeah, seriously, the first seven times. It's not exactly a tear-jerker. But I guess that tells you something about the rationality of my pregnancy hormones these days.
what!? you let your kids watch you tube! I so have less respect for you now... JUST KIDDING. Believe it or not we use you tube for school. When we are studying certian animals or plants or something like rockets or really anything it works great to find videos on there for them... of course with supervision and preveiwing. We also have netflix for family movie nights and to watch educational learning videos, they actually have a big selection on instant play!
ReplyDeleteYep, I'm with Kristin. We use you tube for school, too, especially for science. Sometimes a short video is worth 1000 words (and much faster!) :)
ReplyDelete