Four Shows a Day

I decided my daughter was watching too much t.v. and announced to my partner that we're enforcing a four-show limit. And no, movies don't count. We're limiting the zombie-like anti-social stare to two hours a day.

Why not? As a stay-at-home feminist, I have time for Play-Doh, getting on the rug, role playing with boy dolls as nurses and girl dolls as doctors. I can push Thomas the train around te track between dealing with meals and a bath. However, feeding, clothing and early morning fun only gets me to 9am.

Now that we are potty training though this cottage-style home we inhabit is closing in on me. The four-show rule feels oppressive but I'm stubborn and I'm trying to be a good mother.

My daughter got up at 5:30am today. My co-parent, her father, brought her into the living room. I dragged myself downstairs at 7am and before I'm even my chugging my iced coffee I want to know, "Which show are you on? What number show is this?"

"The second. Maybe the third?" he says as my little one is hugging my leg.

"Yeah, yeah. Good morning and I love you too pooka doodle doo but I have to talk to your father. What do you mean you left me one show? You have to work til 9pm, which is fourteen hours from now, and you left me one show?"

It's beginning to look an awful lot like recovery as I mumble, "One day at a time. One day at a time. I know I can do this."

"It's like coffee," I tell my friends. "It's not the amount. I don't need a lot but I absolutely require two cups." en I need it I have to have it."

So, I went from no t.v., to some t.v., to well at little isn't so bad and now I have the friggin shakes.

We managed though and I'm either a genius or a horrible mother. I packed a potty in a bag and stuck it under the carriage. There is a way to do potty training and leave the house. Why can a boy take a leak in the woods on a tree but I can't carry a potty? I wasn't exactly sure what I'd do with the pee if my daughter used the potty, which she didn't, but it comforted her as she had four false alarms.

Anyhow, we got through and and had lunch followed by reading and a long nap. Later, we counted and then stuck an industrial size box of on various stuffed animals imaginary boo-boos. When I finally lost my patience, I reached for the remote and read a little as she watched the one little show I had left.