Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Great Television Debate

Whenever Dale is traveling (and sometimes even when he's home!), I let the girls watch a television show while I put Bryce to bed. So our daily debate is who gets to choose the show. Or, in other words, are they going to watch Barney (Ivie's fav) or Caillou (Macie's go-to)?

We've tried various methods of making this decision. Ivie's idea is always to "hold a number behind your back, Mommy" and let one of them choose the number (e.g., Is it "1" or "2", Macie?) But this game only works when, well, it never really works, because one girl always loses (GASP). And it's also a method that is highly "fix-able", since Macie, with her incredibly short attention span, always chooses whatever number you say last (like "2", in the above example). As a result, Dale and I can always "make" either Ivie or Macie win, depending on who's been the better kid that day.

So what we've gotten in the habit of doing lately is taking turns. (Took us 5 1/2 years and 3 kids to figure that one out.) This works great typically, but only when we can remember which show they watched the night before. Unfortunately, with my memory, that's not a given. And I certainly can't just ask them what they watched, because, although they both definitely know, you can rest assured that they are seeing right through my weakness and are both adamant that they watched THE OTHER GIRL'S FAVORITE SHOW the night before.

So this causes quite a dilemma, not unlike a slightly different scenario we encountered tonight. The problem? The girls "lost" television last night as a result of a kicking battle in the car on our way home from Chick-fil-A. Which means that I had to think back to who had chosen the show the night before last. Yeah. No chance.

So I told the girls that they could either try to agree on a show, or I was going to pick one (and it wouldn't be either of their two favorites). Ivie, in an attempt to reason with Macie but still maintain immediate gratification, said, "Macie, I'll let you choose the next TWO nights if you let me watch Barney tonight!". And Macie, being a 3-year old, kept her response short and not-so-sweet, saying, "No!!! I want to watch Caillou!".

Turns out they really enjoyed The Berenstain Bears.

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