By Seth Greene

I write this after giving up and turning over the tv to my children in frustration.

My wife and I are stupidly trying to watch television while the kids are awake.

Having made this mistake in the past, I am prepared.
I have asked the two older kids if they are hungry.  They both said no.
My wife is nursing on the couch, so she’s got the baby covered.

The older two have toys to play with and appear to be happy.  Silly me.

We start the thirty minute show.

Then my son decides that he IS hungry and wants my leftover steak from last night.
I was going to finish it after the show, but whatever.
The other day I was  literally putting a fork IN MY MOUTH and he says, “Daddy, are you going to eat that?”
Yes!  I am going to eat my own food that I PAID FOR!  My wife is way too nice,
and makes me give him the damn food off my plate and I have to eat something else.

So I went in the kitchen and cut up the steak. I microwaved it and served it and
sat down to finish the tv show my wife and I had been trying to watch for the last few days.

As soon as I sat down he asked for juice. I told him to wait for a commercial.
After three minutes he went to the kitchen and helped himself to a juice box.
Thank God for small miracles.
Except God has a sense of humor, and my son manages to spill the apple juice he is pouring for himself all over the kitchen floor.
I pause the show again, and go in the kitchen to clean up the mess.
Now that the floor is only a little bit sticky (I will finish it later),
I give him a glass of juice (after he cries because I made him eat at the table vs. in the living room where he wants to eat)
and try to go back to the show.

We got halfway to the next commercial break before he asked for more steak.

This is why it takes us three days and several hours to get through one show that’s less than 25 minutes of actual tv time.

After he’s fed again, we turn the show on again.

Then my son crawls under a clear plastic crate we were using to pack up toys to put in our crawl space
because we don’t have a basement and our house is exploding.
My 4 year old daughter holds the crate down and my son who could easily push his way out freaks out and starts crying.

So much for trying to watch tv.
If only we could ignore them!!