Pumpkins All Around In My Little Red Wagon...

That's what Barney is singing right now on Sprout and I just know that this is what will be in my head for the next few days. The Sprout channel is a wonderful learning tool for children and I know that my son has learned a lot from it but I also know that I am not alone when I say that I CAN'T STAND it. Oh man, it's like these shows have subliminal messages in them or something! Even my 13 month old gets sucked into these shows and he doesn't know what they're talking about! It's like baby crack!

I have a confession to make. I had Joey a day after Johnnie's third birthday during the summer and Joey was a difficult baby who was hungry ALL.THE.TIME. No joke. I was seriously breastfeeding this kid (sorry) every hour and a half for at least 45 minutes so this didn't leave much time for poor three year old Johnnie. I felt bad and we had a lot of family members that would take him out for the day and things like that but there were some days where I would be at home with him all day and would have to find things to entertain him in between feedings. We would do the usual preschooler projects but sometimes he would just want to hang out and watch TV so I would set him up in the living room or my bedroom and put on his favorite channel (Sprout).

But then, something would go terribly, terribly wrong for this poor three year old and he would accidentally change the channel to CNN or The Weather Channel or maybe even just static and this sad little boy would come running to wherever I was nine out of ten times feeding his new but extremely inconvenient little brother.

So, I did what any quick thinking but stuck-on-the-couch-feeding-a-newborn mother would do. I taught my three year old how to use the remote. It was the only thing I could do at the time and....he's....learning....his....numbers,....right? (Just humor me.)

I'm not proud of this fact (okay, maybe a little) but my son knows how to get to Spout, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, and ESPN. I'm pretty sure my husband did some teaching of his own on that last one.

But to every good thing there is a downside, and the downside to our situation is OH MY GOD, WE TAUGHT OUR CHILD HOW TO USE THE REMOTE!!! WHAT WERE WE THINKING??? And this kid knows how to use it. We'll all be sitting around, enjoying a very educational hour of Jersey Shore or The Bad Girl's Club when all of a sudden we'll see a '1', '1', and an '8' pop up at the top of the screen. All of the adults in the room will scan the room for Johnnie and he'll be off in a corner sitting with the remote trying to act like a perfect little angel while not making eye contact with anyone. How do we not notice that instead of seeing a bunch of drunken people get into fights we're seeing Caillou talk to his cat Gilbert about what he did at playschool? (Shoot me now for knowing that.)

TANGENT ALERT: I really hate Caillou. Like, to my core. Maybe it's his incessantly high pitched voice and the only way I know that he's not a girl is because they say it in the theme song? Maybe it's the fact that he's supposed to be four years old and is bald while his whole family, including his younger sister, all have hair? Maybe it's the simple fact that I am 26 years old and know waaaaayyy too much about a show aimed at a preschooler market?

Now I'm just depressed.