Only Sometimes Clever

Along with living on homemade rice milk, candy and g.f. pretzels if I let her, my 2yo Audrey would also watch Noggin 24/7.  She wakes up, and nine times out of ten, the first thing from her sleepy-eyed, tousled head is, “I need Noggin.”  From how often she asks, you’d think that we were total TV junkies.  We’re not, really. 

The temptation is there, sometimes, to plunk her down in front of the TV, I admit.  She has two speeds:  Havoc, and Watching TV.  There’s no middle ground with her.  She is almost insanely active, so when her feet skid to a stop, and she sits down to watch a show, pretty much everyone breathes a collective sigh of relief.

Audrey is, by nature, actually quite polite.  One of her first phrases was a cheerful, high-pitched, sincere, unprompted, ”Thank you!!!”  However, she can get quite demanding when she wants something, and extremely displeased when her desires are thwarted.  So, instead of letting her say, “I need Noggin,” I have her ask, “May I please watch Noggin?”  What really gets to her is, after I’ve corrected her, and made her ask nicely, most of the time, my answer is still, ”No, not right now,” to letting her watch.  I’m cruel like that.

What with the Olympics, we’d had the TV on for most of the day yesterday.  Though I adore the Olympics, and watch as much as I can, having the TV on for so long really wears on my nerves.  So, I had turned it off, and told the boys, “No more TV.  We’ll turn the Olympics back on in a couple of hours, but for now, don’t even ask, OK?”  It was late afternoon, my hubby had come home from work early – sadly, that’s an extreme rarity — I was exhausted for no good reason, and having tons of painful contractions.  I just wanted, truly, to sit in relative silence, enjoy Martin’s puttering about the house, and rejoice in the fact that he had decided that we would spend part of a gift card/rebate on some take-out from Pei Wei. 

Then, Audrey awoke from her nap.

She immediately crawled into my lap and with her tiny little voice, started begging for Noggin.  The TV had been off for all of about ten minutes.  No.  No.  No TV.  No TV.  She changed tactics, and started asking politely for “her” channel.  “May I please watch Noggin?  Yes??  Noggin, please???”  Her sweet little voice… her wide, hopeful eyes…  her attempts at politeness… her crazy hair, sticking out all over from her nap…  It got to me.  I caved.  With a big sigh, I said, “OK.  I will turn on Noggin for you.”  She let out an excited gasp.  She clasped her hands together, and with utmost sincerity, pleasure, and thankfulness, she said, “Oh, Mommy!!  You maked me so happy!!!”

~sigh~

Could you resist?