As a child, I did TV. I enjoyed Are you Afraid of the Dark on Saturday evenings, and I remember the heavy feeling of disappointment that settled on me if it was a repeat. Saturday morning were all about sugar cereal, and cartoons in my jammies [until my parents forced me to play soccer, but that's another story] and so TV doesn’t freak me out. After all, I watched it, and I’m not brain dead.

Until I had started Googling…

After reading horrific tales of autism and TV, I pretty much told myself my kid would not be glued to the tube. She can hang outside and climb trees, chew on sticks, read books, paint, and sing to herself, but she can’t spend more than one hour a day watching our awesomely huge flat screen. This weekend, the TV hardly went on, and instead we had a blast doing house stuff, and my fifteen month old spent about an hour singing to herself in my laundry basket. I felt so god damn proud of myself until about 5pm last night, when our nanny came in, and my daughter launched into full on-Nemo mode.

You see, we have Nemo on DVD. She watched it once [with my permission] all curled up on the bed and now she’s addict. At fifteen months she can say “Bruce..” “Nemo..” and she knows when the scary parts are on, and runs into the kitchen to see myself, Daddy, or the nanny so we can comfort her. It was cute the first three times it happend, but now she’s got a serious addiction…

In the morning, the first three words out of her mouth are: Mama, Dada, Nemmie [aka Nemo..]

In the morning, the first three words out of my mouth are: Hi, mommas here, Dads in the kitchen, Nemo is sleeping, shhh. And I try to trick her into believing that Nemo parties all night, and sleeps all day. She is not allowed to spend her mornings glued to the TV, but she can talk to the Nemo stickers that are set up to her size on our garbage can all she wants.  When we do allow her Nemo, she smilies in this blissed out way, and it’s made me realize that the stupid little clownfish is in fact, toddler crack. Today when I refused her Nemo, she threw a FIT, and so we are now on a Nemo strike.

This weekend, my husband and I spent something like two hundred bucks on a fish tank, pirate ships, rocks, and hot pink glow in the dark faux coral so that my daughter can have real life Nemos. Nemos that she can learn about, and feed, and that are much more fun than the cartoon version…I hope.

Wish us luck.

It’ us vs Nemo