This Zombie is actually my son, Nicholas. This is what a 20 month old turns into when he's watching Elmo or Blue's Clues. Should one change the channel and attempt to watch the news, or perhaps even an episode of Rosanne, the Zombie becomes aware of your existance and begins snarling and raging, and one must quickly return to the previous child friendly program before he sprouts fangs and tries to eat your brain.

I had every intention of becomming one of those GOOD parents who limit TV to twenty minutes a week and instead usher their children through art projects and interactive games that nurture self-esteem and cultivate imagination while teaching important skills. What I failed to take into account is that Nick would find any of these games boring. If he is interested. he is interested for about 5 minutes, which is pretty much his attention span for anything.

I started out watching the last 15 minutes of Sesame Street while I got dressed in the morning. I sat him on my bed with a few toys and he stayed there, happy. I even had time to brush my teeth! I DID have an issue when I realized that ER was on every day at 10am, and when he was really small I would watch it every day until I caught up on all of the episodes - I have seen EVERY episode of ER. scary.

When I had finished my visual collection of ER episodes I would watch some TV in the late afternoon, or during the day if we were sick or overly tired. The trouble is that, as I became more and more pregnant, I became more and more tired. More and more time became TV time.

Now that Nathan is here I am once more making an attempt at cutting down TV time. But Nicholas has tasted the forbidden fruit, and he refuses to go back in time. He waves the remote in my face and asks for Elmo. He knows the theme songs and characters for at least 4 different shows. At least.

The trouble with children's programming is that each show makes only 4 or 5 episodes, which then air 47 times each day. I feel that I know every word to every episode of every show we watch on TV. I guess it's good that kids love repitition. Again! Again!

Despite all this I have decided not to stress too much about it. I turn off the TV every once and awhile. We play in Nick's room. We read books. We run around the house, when we can. When I do turn the TV on I sacrifice my episodes of Rosanne and ER so that he can watch "good" TV that either gets him dancing or that fosters learning of some sort. I ignore his Zombie face so that I can get a few things done - like dinner, dressing myself, little things lke that that I feel MUST get done.

Gosh I hope I'm not really turning his brain to Jam.