Dear Matt’s Primary Caregiver: I am not a pervert. Signed, W.

The American Pediatric Society recommends that babies do not watch TV before the age of two. Something about television ruining your baby’s attention span…blah, blah, blah…and…uhh…what was I talking about?

Oh yeah, how TV turns babies into malcontents.

Apparently people who make TV shows for babies also have hidden agendas. Hidden agenda #1: Encouraging kids to hone their gay-dar skills by debating the question to end all questions: are Bert and Ernie really… you know… flaming? Hidden agenda #2: Encouraging kids to START SCREAMING THEIR HEADS OFF UNTIL YOU HAND OVER YOUR VISA AND TELL THEM YES ALREADY JUST GO TO THE MALL AND BUY THE @$!^% X-RATED VIDEO GAME YOU SAW ON THAT COMMERCIAL BUT ONLY IF YOU JUST SHUT YOUR PIE HOLE ALREADY AND DON’T LET THE FRONT DOOR MAKE TOO MUCH NOISE HITTING YOUR ASS ON THE WAY OUT BECAUSE MARY MOTHER OF GOD I AM TRYING TO TAKE A NAP HERE!

So, good mom that I am, I have banished all Baby Einstein DVD products from our house until the Babe is old enough to START FREAKING OUT AND WAILING ABOUT WHAT A WICKED WOMAN I AM BECAUSE JEEZ LOUISE ALL HE WANTS TO DO IS WATCH A COUPLE CARTOONS AND OKAY I’LL TELL HIM HERE IS YOUR OWN BIG SCREEN NOW PLEASE JUST LEAVE MOMMY ALONE WHEN IT’S MARTINI TIME (which will just conveniently happen to be at the same time as Sesame Street is at 10:00 am…as in 10:00 am in the morning).

But while TV is out, I definitely think Hotmail is fair game. And so every morning when I wake up and check my email, the Babe is allowed to sit on mommy’s knee and read along with her about all the parties mommy will never, ever get to attend again, not in a million, billion years, and also all the spam from some broad named Debbie Dallason asking about whether or not mommy wants to elongate her you-know-what. And the Babe also sits on mommy’s lap mesmerized by the clickity clack clack while mommy types her blog entry everyday. And while she checks other people’s blogs.

Like Matt’s.

If you’ll recall, I spent Mother’s Day on the computer, peeping into the Microsoft Windows of others via their recently updated blogs, and one of these happened to be “when matt gets bored.” Matt, whose witticism belies his age, is a soon-to-be grade ten student/fellow blogger from Wisconsin. One day I happened to leave a comment on one of his posts about how I liked his blog even though (or because) he was a bit of a potty mouth and the next thing I knew we became regular checkers of each other’s on-line diaries.

While a relationship between a 27-year-old woman who’s recently borne child and a minor niner would be weird in any other context, it’s not really that out of the ordinary in Bloggerville. But it did get me thinking about the social scene that is the Internet, and I have become concerned about the ways in which the Babe will someday be exposed to the technology. Will he too be reading some crazy Canadian’s blog about her baby when he should really be STUDYING FOR HIS FINALS, YOUNG MAN? So I’m laying down the new law: the Babe can watch all the TV he wants after the age of two, but he will get his own account on MySpace WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER.

*****

PS. Right after I published this post I went to Matt's blog and saw that he recently posted a picture of himself. Dig the thumbs up, dude. No wonder we get along.