My kids are watching Barney right now, which means I'm going to have songs in my head for a week. They might enjoy it, be occupied by it, dance around a little. Sure, it might be good for them, but think of what it will do to me?
I pick my children's TV shows based on whether the songs will get stuck on my head. I'm not ashamed to admit that. And they will never watch Caillou, because the song is catchy and Caillou whines.
They do love Barney, apparently, and they knew about it from preschool. I knew those other toddlers were bad influences the moment I saw my first Dora backpack in the mini-lockers! I will say, we've been doing rather well. Sebastian is almost 4 and has never seen an episode of Barney until today.
I've hidden this from people: when other parents mention a song or dance that they find themselves doing, I act like I do the same thing. No, no I don't. And I haven't for almost four years.
Until this morning, Barney was relegated to long-buried memories from when my younger sisters watched it incessantly. They're twins, so one of them was always in a Barney mood. We moved them over to Gymboree, which I think was filmed in a real gym with a clown (and is probably not legal now,) but then the tape broke. I did love playing in a laundry basket with the twins, since I was like 11 and when we were done playing Row Row Row Your Boat, my brother and I would use the same laundry basket to surf down the stairs. The twins are college seniors now. That's a lot of years of avoiding that Yankee Doodle song.
Now it's over. Everything I worked for, just gone.
Wait! Audrey is now hopping around the living room like a frog! I think Barney has redeemed himself. I'll keep him on mute in the future.
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