"Can I watch a movie?"

How many times can a three-year-old ask this question in a 24-hour period? Hundreds. Perhaps thousands. She asked me, she asked my husband. She persisted. She did not lose faith. But, interestingly, she also did not melt down. She did not scream or pout or yell, which, if you're at all familiar with 3-year-olds, is the state they're in pretty much perpetually. The smallest thing can cause a complete conniption in our little darling, but for reasons we can't quite discern, not getting to watch a movie today did not trip the freak-out wire.

Reasons her dad and I gave her ranged across the board:
-It's too early.
-We don't watch TV in this house. (Dad's bold declaration.)
-Let's have lunch first. (After which she forgot her request.)
-No, let's go play. (She was happy to oblige this one on more than one occasion.)
-Not until when I'm making dinner. (This one was from me at a weak moment when I figured she could watch something while I cooked.)
-Not until after dinner (This one was given after dinner was cooked but before it was eaten--and she forgot to ask again after dinner and went to bed without mentioning it again.)

So one side-affect of no television I can see already is that my house is a total catastrophe. I spent the time Rachel watched television cleaning up the natural disasters that inevitably follow her from room to room. Today I had no such reprieve. And we were unpacking from our vacation so clothes, shoes, toys, diapers, etc were strewn across the floor in every inch of our house. But interestingly, after the girls went to bed, I spent about 30 minutes straightening up and the house is back in order. Did it normally take so little time to clean up? Or did I not bother to clean because I wanted to watch television and I was left with a meagre 10 exhausted minutes at 11PM to at least get the open food off the counters? (And then wake up to a dirty house which is one of my pet-peeves.) So yes, the house was a disaster all day but right now it's looking pretty spiffy, thank you very much. I'll just have to learn to not sweat it during the day.

My husband and I are not feeling the pangs of missing television. I feel freed. I don't feel like I'm missing something. That's part of why I turned on television before we banished it. I always thought, "Maybe there's something really good on." Rarely was that the case. But I do have a confession to make. I watched something on my computer. It's my favorite show and it's on MTV and yes, I am a grown woman--not a teenager--and I shouldn't be interested in this reality soap-opera garbage, but I am addicted to The Hills so I watched an episode last night in bed. I could only watch 5 minute segments at a time and it took only 20 minutes...is this cheating? My other favorite show, Grey's Anatomy, is also online, I think. So I'm really not giving everything up.

Oh, and I sent an e-mail to friends and family about this blog and the response so far has been overwhelmingly positive. Mostly I heard back from grandparents and parents and one cousin and they all seemed to think we were on to something--or at least they said they were proud of us for trying. So in turn I did spend some time feeling all high and mighty today--all self-righteously better than most of America for saying no-thank-you to the talking box. Yes, I'm quickly turning into one of those annoying people. But ask me again in a week. I may be praying for the hastening of the cable guy's Oct 1st arrival.

And then there's those other family and friends out there who already have no television who are probably reading this wondering what the big deal is, thinking, "Man, she really was addicted." There are many different levels on the spectrum of television attachment. My husband and I are confidently swinging over to the other side, but I can't say so much for our oldest daughter. Maybe tomorrow she'll only ask us if she can watch a movie two hundred times. One can hope.