The Courage to Turn it Off

I once heard a quote, and I can't find it no w to credit it but I'm sure that whomever said it was brilliant, that went something like; "I used to have zero children and a lot of theories.  Now I find that I have four children and zero theories."I love that. Similarly, my husband and I often talk about the times when we were perfect parents. You know, before we had kids.  I had a lot of theories back then. They were great theories, too, firmly rooted in the best information that child development experts, parenting books and articles, and the perfectly coiffed and adorned moms in the checkout lines had to offer.  What they were not, though, is based in reality.  One of these theories is that I would NEVER, EVER, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES allow television to babysit my children.  I really truly believed that this was the best decision for the children I would someday have.  Fast forward several years to what we refer to as the catastrophic twos of my oldest son.  My oldest, whom we'll refer to as Diesel is my whole heart.  He is a source of endless joy and quirkiness.  He too, though, is a hard kid, and until we were able to put our finger on the issues that were leaving him in a constant state of frustrated rage I would spend more days than I care to admit doing the kind of crying that makes your face blotchy and snotty and makes your contacts fall out.  But, man, the kid loved TV.  I found that if I would turn on the noisy light box I could, in effect, just turn the volume down for an hour and a half at a time.  At first, that's just what it was; a way every now and then to give him, and me, a break.  But, like any drug and let's not kid ourselves, television is a drug, we found ourselves slipping.  Then we moved,and while we were packing and unpacking it was just easier to leave the TV on more.  Then I had a rough last trimester and couldn't move around much and so we left it on more.  Then I had a newborn, and then and then and then until I looked around and realized that, even when the boys were asleep, our TV was rarely off.  Ever.  I think I knew, even then, that things were going to have to change, but I just turned up the volume and moved on.  You see, turning the TV off was scary.   If I did that, I was going to have to actually parent.  I was going to have to address some issues, with my children, with my marriage, that I just didn't want to deal with.  Plus, I was just so motherlovin' TIRED, y'all.  But, God wasn't about to quit; He had a plan for our family.  It started with a feeling of shame.  I was afraid to have friends over; you see, we would have to turn the TV off and Diesel would get overstimulated.  Or we would have to leave it on and people might know how much that thing rant in our house.  Then I started noticing that most of Diesel's communication is lines from TV shows.  And it's great, you know, because he IS communicating, but I want to hear his thoughts, not Daffy Duck's, which brings us to the next point.  Even in kids' shows, those cats are MOUTHY.  It's hardly fair to punish him for parroting what is modeled as okay, but at the same time, man that stuff is ugly coming out of my little dude's mouth.  Still, though, it wasn't enough.  We were addicts, remember, and addicts are notoriously thick when it comes to hearing why they should give up their drug of choice.  So, God decided to be a little more clear.  I remember when it happened. The boys were in the playroom watching something, and I was rocking the baby and engaging in what was supposed to have been a half hour of mommy time (two hours ago).  I was watching the pretty vapid girls argue on America's Next Top Model and I heard God as clearly as if He'd been on the screen.  "So, this is what you think glorifies Me. This is what you choose to spend your time on?"  Yes, God, used a preposition at the end of his sentence, which is just further proof to me that American English is spawned by the devil, but I digress.  And that was it.  I turned off mine.  I turned off theirs.  It was just as scary as I thought it would be.  I hadn't taught my kids to play without me, so at first it was superhard