Longing for the Lion King

There are 6 years separating my oldest and youngest children. When Mason (my oldest) was younger, I did let him watch TV, but I guarded it very heavily and was very choosy (and still am). Veggie Tales were good, Sesame Street was good, and Barnie (I’m ashamed to say) was indeed, good. Mason’s favorite thing to watch was “The Grapes of Wrath” – a Veggie Tales story about forgiveness. He watched it at least once a day. Even now, I can still quote the thing from memory…but I’ll save that for another blog entry.

When Mason was 14 months old, along came Caroline. As he grew I began to let him widen his horizons, so to speak, and along came Disney. Lion King was all he wanted to watch (I can quote it as well. Again…another blog entry)! With Caroline tagging along, of course. Caroline enjoyed the Grapes of Wrath, too, but she wanted to watch what her brother was watching.

Then along came Molly, and more of the same…they are watching bigger kid stuff at younger ages because there is another, older kid watching too.

Ethan, my youngest, is now 2. There is a bigger gap between he and the older children, so I have been able to introduce him to Sesame Street while siblings are at school, and he really likes it.

Which, let me go ahead and say how much I love it myself. I’m even going to go so far as to admit – here on cyberspace – that I enjoyed the show well into my sixth grade year and stopped watching it only because I knew that if any of my friends ever found out, they would laugh at me. But come on! 1, 2, 3…4, 5, 6…7, 8, 9…10, 11, 12…and they all played games…at the ladybug picnic! Classic.

A couple days ago Ethan came to me and said, “Ma…me watch ‘Be Te Ay For’”

“What?”

“Be Te Ay For!”

Then it hit me: Ben Ten Alien Force. Good grief!

Bless ya!