ugh, I hate the tv!!

It's been raining all day. So I took the kids bowling this afternoon to kill some time between piano lessons (and my first cello lesson) and family night at the club on base. We were the only people there besides some Japanese men who were relaxing a few lanes over with their pitcher of draft, at 3 in the afternoon... hmmm. Anyway, the employees there thought it would be nice to put pokemon on the tv for the kids while they bowl. Well, until they turned it on, the kids were having a blast, getting excited for each other, and bowling well. It was like someone flipped a switch. They turned into zombies, focused only on the tv. They stopped talking to each other. And when it was Simon's turn to bowl, he didn't want to.

I went up to the counter and thanked them for thinking that the kids would like it. But I asked them to turn the news back on. They asked 'are you sure?'. 'Um, yeah. Look at the kids. I brought them here to bowl and get some exercise.' I paid for bowling, not tv time. SO they changed it back.

To their credit, all the kids went straight back to bowling. One or two of them noticed the change in channel, and I freely admitted that I had asked them to change it back. We went on to finish the game and not another word was said.

Thursday family night at the club offers a buffet and some poor souls dressed up in costume (tonight was elmo, pooh and pikachu) drawing numbers for door prizes. Last week, Mia won this giant Barbie Sleeping Beauty Castle, and the boys didn't win anything. They were cool about it, even came home and helped her put it together. This week, some friends joined us for dinner there and when their daughter won a Barbie and didn't want it, she gave it to Mia. Well, I guess that was the end of the line for Simon. He fell apart, and another mom that was with us offered a toy that her son had won and was too young for. We graciously declined, citing the valuable lesson of dealing with the disappointment. Well, we were right, in a matter of minutes he was running around having fun, and watching... tv.
We were all staring at the kids standing up in front of the big screen they had set up. We chose to eat at the tables behind the tv, so they wouldn't be staring at it during dinner. But they found it anyway, after they had eaten, and were staring at it like zombies, some of them with their (green popsicle stained) mouths half open. It was creepy, actually.

I have a book coming from amazon.com called Four Arguments Against Television, or something along those lines. Tim asked what was the point of that book, everyone knows tv is bad for you. But nonetheless, I would like to read the book.

Gotta get to bed, so glad tomorrow is Friday!