Confessions of a Toddler Mom: I Encourage My Kids To Watch TV

I admit it. Especially when pregnant, I sometimes try to get my kids to watch tv just so I can clean the kitchen or take a quick nap on the couch or make dinner or get some business work done. When the digital TV switch happened a few weeks ago, we opted to get rid of TV altogether. That's right. We never got our little box. Even though it was free. So really, when I say TV, I mean movies. I prefer movies anyway since, a) they can be paused, turned off, and restarted whenever we want, b) I can view them prior to them permeating our little children's minds, and c) they are move convenient.

Alright, so I made that last one up. I don't really think movies are more convenient than TV. I just thought the sentence would look better with three points.

Regardless of how many reasons there are that I prefer movies, that is what we have. In fact, on the rare occasion that our children did watch television (you know, when we still had it), they would get confused when I would tell them we weren't able to pause it for later. They simply couldn't understand why they couldn't watch the rest of Barney after lunch.

I fixed this problem by simply buying them a Barney DVD. Because I'm nice like that.

Seriously though, we don't really have that many kid movies. I guess "that many" is kind of a relative term, but I'd say we have about...ehh....15. The limited number is also good because it deters me from encouraging them to sit in front of the screen since I get tired of those 15 movies a whole lot quicker than they do.

But then again....some days it's just so much easier to put in the ear plugs, run the water in the kitchen, and turn a blind eye to things like this:

Confessions of a Toddler Mom: I Sleep While My Kids Play

I know there are several moms out there who are always wide-eyed and bushy-tailed every waking moment their children are up during the day. There are moms who get up at the crack of dawn and have breakfast ready when their kids wake at 7am. There are moms who get a shower, have their quiet time, drink their coffee, and eat their own breakfast before their children even break out of dreamland.

I am not one of these moms.

When the sun rises on our house early each morning (especially early in the summer), I am sleeping. I am sleeping because I stay up at night after my family goes to bed and work on my business. Occasionally I'll watch a movie, read, or do something productive like (ugh!) folding laundry...but in general, I'm working at the computer.

When one of my children comes in to tell me "it's pretty outside", I simply roll over, invite them to join me in the bed, and fall back asleep. They usually don't fall back asleep. They read or roll around in my bed. Once both my older kids are up, they play together or watch a movie in my son's room.

My youngest is still in her crib and happens to LOVE being there, so I generally go in to get her sometime after 9am. Up until 8.30 or so, I enjoy resting between bouts of getting up to see what the latest fussing is about with the other two.

I realize this is probably highly irresponsible, but this is a typical morning for me. Thankfully, my children play together very well and generally don't have too many quarrels. At least not this early in the morning. They always stay upstairs and I can hear them very well (even though I'm sleeping - sort of), so this has never caused any problems in our home.

Considering I'm 6 months pregnant right now, sleeping is a main priority of mine so I try to get as much of it as possible. Granted, I don't sleep nearly as much late into the morning when I'm not pregnant, but right now....well, it's just part of my routine.

Now you may chastise me. But please be gentle. :)

And just because I'm going to try to start posting pictures more regularly on this blog, here's my adorable daughter acting unusually cooperative in front of the camera:

Goodness, how did I get such CUTE kids??

And yes, it's a total coincidence that her outfit just happens to match my newly colored and designed blog.