Day 472 - C.T.U. Later

One of my favorite television shows is "24." Tonight it premiered with a two hour special, and tomorrow night there's another two hours. Very exciting to see how many hilarious torture scenes will be on this season. Although all of the episodes with Kim Bauer threatened by forest animals were torturous enough.

But a strange thing happened tonight: I was too tired to watch it. This is a little surprising because I was raised on television. My best friends were Mr. Rogers, Mr. Ed, and Mr. Tibbs (I called him Virgil once, and boy did I get it!). I also remember getting the fall preview edition of the TV Guide and figuring out which television shows to watch. Before the days of Tivo, you would have to choose which show to watch: Manimal or AfterMASH. What a decision!

I remember hearing my friends with kids telling me how little time they have to watch television, see movies, read books, take showers, empty their bowels, etc. And I thought they were just crazy. With all of the time that kids sleep, you must have time to do the things you enjoy doing. And for the first year with the kids, I did find the time and energy to do most of the things I enjoyed doing: renting movies, playing video games, reading books, and prank calling convalescent homes. But all of this changed as soon as the kids became more...human.

Once Emma and Andrew started to become more active and selfishly needed our attention, our free time priorities changed. Before this whole development crap, our lives really didn't change too much except for the fact that we could no longer leave the home without social services checking up on us. But now there does not seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything we need to do. I suggest that for every child you have you receive an extra hour in the day. Although this maybe an unfair advantage to the Mormons and Brangelina.

I know we'll get around to watching "24" later this week; that's what Tivo is for. But life isn't like Tivo. You can't pause or rewind your life. There's no cute little television set bouncing around suggesting what you should do with your life. You just deal with the present, learn from the past, and prepare for the future. And I suppose that's what parenting is all about.