Mom tricks

I'm going to go out on a limb and say, this parenting tip, you probably will not find in the "manual." Luckily, there is no such thing. As my mom says "Everyone has the right to F#*% up their own children."

However, my kid has been obsessed with TV, movies, video games lately and I don't like it. I don't like it at all. We live in San Diego. It's nice here year round, there's always green grass, soft sand and salt water a few blocks away, all day, every day. If there is anyone who shouldn't OWN a television, it should be us. But as life goes, at the end of a long work day, sometimes I just don't feel like tearing every cushion off the couch and finding every pillow and blanket in the house to build a fort. Sometimes I really don't want to put together 25 glow sticks to make necklaces and dance around in the dark like a nineteen year old on Ecstasy. So I needed an alternate plan and I've found that even at four years old, he's more likely to buy into an idea if it's HIS idea.

I broke out an oldie but goodie and let the poem do the talking. A poem from Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein called "Jimmy Jet and his TV Set." It's about a boy who watched too much TV and eventually turned into a television set. See, at four years old, Hudson still can't fully separate real from imaginary and oddly enough, he has found some other activities to do on this particular evening. Mean or brilliant? I will sleep just fine tonight either way.