How much is too much?

Jaden and I have our schedules relatively ironed out now. He gets up shortly after Daddy, and heads to the kitchen so that Daddy can start to feed him his oatmeal. He patiently waits for me to groggily creep out of bed and actually manage to get the spoon in his mouth a few times instead of adding to the mess all over his face. After breakfast we go through our day alternating with feedings and diaper changes, bottles and naps, more diaper changes and feedings, and of course, Elmo. In between we fit in some songs (itsy bitsy spider and old macdonald are two of our favorites), a few hundred rounds of “patty cake,” and the “where is?” game….where is the apple? …where is Mommy’s nose?… where is Elmo? (We always get the Elmo one right). 

We are all trying to get over being sick. For some reason this particular cold, or virus, or whatever it is, has taken us all for a longer ride than usual. Jaden has been sick for almost two weeks. I got it a few days later, but it is still over a week now that I have symptoms. I felt well enough this morning that I thought I was finally clearing out of it, but by mid-afternoon I wanted to down an entire bottle of Day-Quil to stop my eye from gushing and my nose from running. Jaden is fed up with us trying to clean his nose out – he screams so loud when we approach him with a tissue or the bulb that I’m sure the neighbors think we’re torturing him. 

The night terrors have stopped for the past few days – I have my fingers crossed hoping that it is a sign of the future. We had a few scares last week, including terrors during nap hour – which is highly unusual. Maybe being sick made him more susceptible than usual. The past two nights were good sleep nights – knock on wood – I hope we have many more just like these. 

I have discovered this week that as long as Elmo is rambling on about his World on the TV, Jaden is perfectly happy occupying himself. He’ll play with his toys, look through his board books, try to get “Tickle me Elmo” to roll over, and whatever else he can find to do while he keeps one eye on the TV. If Elmo is not on, he expects me to entertain him minute by minute, which includes never leaving the room, not even to use the bathroom. So I try to save Elmo for the afternoon, when Mommy has had about as much of patty-cake as she can take and needs a moment to put her feet up and ponder about whether she’ll actually get any work done.

The big question on my mind right now: Why do I feel guilty about leaving the TV on for Jaden? I’ve heard about all of those statistics – you know the ones that people talk about but no one provides actual references for – that say the more a kid watches TV the less intellectually and socially developed they end up. I wonder if this is true? Doesn’t it make a difference that most of the TV shows for kids nowadays are educational? Maybe “they” haven’t tested the kids that grew up with the educational shows yet? I mean, Noggin or Sprout, or one of those stations actually does a 10 second (or so) bit before each show telling parents what skills the show helps their pre-schoolers develop (obviously it doesn’t help parents with their memories since I don’t remember which station it was). So this type of TV couldn’t be that bad, right? Or am I just kidding myself?  

If anyone has tips and tricks about how to keep an 11-month old entertained, without dulling his mind with television or losing your own mind, I’m all ears!