I'm writing this blog because I love you. I love you and your kids and want them to be smart. And because I might win a million dollars. But mostly because I love you and your kids. And mostly because of the million dollars. Which is actually a set of DVDs. Worth a million dollars. Or $160. Whatever.

I've been torn for a while, between letting Ari watch educational television and all the experts saying that if my kid stares at a TV for more than five seconds before she's two then by the time she's 20 her brain will have imploded. Or she'll eat hairbrushes. Oh wait she already does that.

So I've made a decision. Looking at a TV can't be any more harmful than eating dog fluff off the floor. (Have I mentioned our vacuum sucks? Or doesn't...wait...which would be worse?) It can't be too bad, especially if I'm interacting with her (one of the concerns with TV) and she's not watching it too much so her eyes will be focusing more on 3D objects than a screen (the other major concern). I've chosen, as my debut educational TV for me and Ari to watch together, Signing Time, a flippin' awesome set of videos I was introduced to my friend R. Right now our budget won't allow us to actually PURCHASE the set (we hope to be remedying that soon) so we are stuck to watching the 1 minute previews on YouTube and looping them.

If you have kids, I would recommend doing the research for yourself about TV but if you do decide to give it a go I would highly recommend Baby Signing Time for infants. Don't do it too often a day and I would definitely watch the DVD with your kid (so you can learn the signs and interact, they will learn faster and more efficiently that way anyway), but I hope it will help Ari learn signs faster if she's seeing the object on the TV and watching BABIES do the sign (instead of boring old mom. See? I'm embarrassing her again...)

Anyway, here's a preview of the next two Baby Signing Time DVDs (which I'm totally stoked about, I was bummed at first because there were only two baby ones and dozens of regular ones, but Ari (as witnessed by my awesome and totally clinically accurate YouTube experiment) seems to like the Baby ones better.)

Enjoy!