TV

The kids woke up at 7am this morning. It isn't early for them, but I was so exhausted that I immediately offered to let them watch TV if they would let me sleep for another half-an-hour (or longer.) They were only to happy to accept. 


Usually this is more of an inconvenience to me than just getting up. The TV is in our bedroom which means the kids are jumping and rolling around on the bed while I am trying to sleep. We'd had guests over the past 10 days and had moved the TV into the living room so we could watch a movie without moving the kids who were sleeping in the TV room downstairs.


I stayed in bed as they rushed out to the living room and turned the TV on. Satisfied that they were occupied, I rolled over and went back to sleep. I've never slept soundly once the kids were up. I dozed on and off for the next half-an-hour, listening to snippets of their conversation and the TV while awake and dreaming of cartoon characters with announcer-like voices.


As I was deciding to get up, Xander came bursting into the room. "Mommy! Mommy!" he hollered. A smile lit up his face and roused me to sit up.


"What's up babe?"


"I just saw the coolest thing on TV! Can we buy it? If so, we have to hurry!" He was clearly really excited.


"Slow down. What is it that you want to buy?" In the background, I could hear Eva singing and the chatty monotone sound of the TV.


"It's kind of like a lawn-mower and a weed whacker. It has the same kind of string and you put it in and then it has a charge. You can go all around a football field twice before you need to charge it. But only the outside, not the middle. It's really cool and I think daddy needs one and it is only 4 cents! So can we buy one? Please?"


Slowly, I began to understand what he was talking about. "Are you sure it was only 4 cents and not $40 dollars?"


"Yeah! I'm sure. And if we hurry it comes with a guard you can put on it to protect the flowers and a set of wheels so you can do the edges of the sidewalks too. So please, please can we have it?" He rattled this all off to me as I walked down the hall and into the living room. I'm not sure why I needed the trip to confirm what he was saying. I had been smiling about it since he started talking about football fields.


Sure enough, as I entered the living room, I was met with a blue screen displaying TV show times and a small box in the corner playing the most recent infomercial. "You'd have to call and ask daddy if he even needs one." Xander started to dash for the phone. "But before you do, can I ask you a question?"


He stopped and stared at me, anxious to make the phone call. "Did you watch any cartoons today?"


"Yes. But we are just waiting for the commercial to get done and they are just really long commercials."


Infomercials usually are.