TV

I'm sure most of you have experienced either as a child or as an adult the effects of television advertising. It starts with the mid-cartoon ads for all of the toys you can't live without. As an adult, it's late night infomercials that are going to enhance your life in every way you didn't even know you needed. As an adult you also experience the other end of it - "I NEED this mom!" "I WANT this mom!".

Ellie doesn't watch very much TV and she really doesn't often WANT or NEED anything from it, but when she does it just cracks me up when she runs upstairs to tell me to go to a website for something she wants..."mom...go to www". The other day I found a paper downstairs with a URL on it written like this "wwwdotnickjrdotcom".

When Ellie does watch TV - I love the shows she chooses so I can't be terribly picky about the ads. She has learned to save water by shutting it off while bushing her teeth. She has also learned a few healthy snacks.

This summer she was watching a show and wrote down all of the ingredients she would need for a tutti fruity snack. She asked me if we could buy all of the stuff because she wanted to make it. Ellie rarely makes anything on her own in the kitchen so I thought it was a great idea and a great way for her to learn to make her own snacks.

We shopped for all of the stuff together and then we brought it home and Ellie strictly followed the directions for her snack, layering fruit, yogurt, granola, and topping it off with honey.

She was so excited when it was done and ate her healthy snack that day and a few other times. I think she was also really excited to do it on her own. It was a great feeling as a mom to see her so excited about something healthy and doing something herself, from the beginning to the end.

So I'll look at a few more www's for her and listen to her toy needs because for us, so far, TV good outweighs TV bad.