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Back when I wasn't going to let my kids play with Barbie dolls or guns, I also wasn't going to let them watch TV. Pardon me a minute...
Okay, I'm back off the floor and the giggling has subsided.
Along with a wonderful husband, Mothers Day Out, and my mommy, TV has saved me during these past few years. I could not have gotten through being pregnant over and over and over with toddlers and infants in my care without the beauty that is children's TV. And I ain't too proud to admit it.
Fortunately, in this glorious age of DVRs and On Demand, there is much high quality TV to choose from. Back in the olden days, with the exception of Saturday cartoons, we got Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers in the morning, and Electric Company in the afternoon, with little but banned soap operas in between. Sunday night came The Wonderful World of Disney, sandwiched between Wild Kingdom and Sixty Minutes. And - get this - you had to be there when they came on or you just missed them.
There is so much good stuff out there now for kids. PBS especially has come out with some phenomenal new shows in the past couple of years.
Here are some Naptime favorites:
1. Max and Ruby....RUBY and her LITTLE BROTHER MAX (do do do do do)
We all heart Max and Ruby. Shepherd claims it is for babies but even he will still stop building Lego bombs when he hears that theme song. Max and Ruby wins the longevity award hands down.
Max and Ruby are bunnies, and the plot lines are sweet and innocent. No monitoring required. This show could have been written in the 1940s, and I love that.
Poor Max and Ruby are among the millions of fairy tale orphans. No parents in sight - they are not even mentioned. Grandma does come to visit frequently, but soon leaves them to their unsupervised selves.
This might inspire you to call CPS, but listen. Ruby manages to keep three year old Max fed and bathed and mostly out of mischief and the house clean, all while getting her Bunny Scout cookies sold. And if that weren't enough, Baby Huffington's momma is constantly dumping him on her as well. As is Baby Shep, Baby Maggie, Baby Eva Rose and Baby Ike's momma.
At age eight, she's a far better woman than I am. Ruby is my hero.
2.
Shepherd's favorite hands to the down. I have mixed feelings about the show, and not just because of the childhood trauma of always being cast as Thelma instead of Daphne. Maggie can't watch it at all - it is far too sca-wy for her. And hey Shaggy - we all know why you have the munchies, okay? Scooby is, however, a rock star, so it must make the list, my misgivings and all.
3. Cailliou.
Calliou, a little French Canadian kid with alopecia, is jumping for joy because he's back in the Naptime household after a two year moratorium due to the whining and baby talk he induced in our home. Calliou is pretty annoying and his mother is certainly tripling her prescription of Prozac. Seriously, the child could and perhaps someday will burn the house down, and she'd find a way to praise him for it. Oh, Calliou, good job not splashing the gasoline!
So why do we watch? Because Calliou is hypnotic. For twenty-eight minutes my children are riveted, motionless. And twenty-eight minutes is just about the the time it takes me to make a phone call or catch a power nap on the couch...or compose a blog post.
4. Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible.
Oh, what a complicated relationship I have with TBN. While I think so many of their people should be burned as heretics for the abomination they promote called the prosperity gospel, some of TBN's good shows are really really good. This is one of them. My kids love it and the bible stories stick with them. As do the songs by the "aspirating woman/male" (Walker's description) like the one about Judas. Oh Judas you sold Jesus out...you're a backstabbing sneaky twofaced crook... See? Catchy.
I have just discovered the Smile channel, which is Christian shows for kids. So far we like Sarah's Stories, Bibleman, and a couple others.
Others we love:
- Word Girl - Word Up, Word Girl is fabulous
- Curious George - classic
- Sid the Science Kid - especially the My Mom is Cool song, um yeah.
- Backyardigans - I wish my kids liked this show as much as I do. And I wish I had named Maggie "Uniqua."
- Martha Speaks
- Dinosaur Train - new on PBS and great
- Olivia
- Sarah's Stories
Shep is just starting to get into real TV. He loves How It's Made, and much to my delight, What the Victorians/Tudors/Stuarts Did for Us. Any other suggestions?
Next Week Friday Faves:Favorite Online Store /Etsy (uh oh, that should be good. And just in time to give a shout out to some friends before Christmas.) To see all upcoming Friday Faves, click here.
20 Comments:
You know how nuts we are about How It's Made...who knew they produced so much stuff in Canada?
Are you SERIOUS about Shaggy? All these years, I just thought he had a high metabolism. I'm feeling so disillusioned...
"I love my mom!" "Uh huh!"
"My mom is cool!" "Uh huh!"
Charlie sings it and it MAKES MY DAY. We are big Sid fans here!
Sid just grates on my nerves. No Sid, no way.
And doesn't it bug you just a little that Max's vocabulary is so limited? But Max and Ruby is a favorite in my house, as well. We also love
1. Curious George
2. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
3. Little Bear
4. Yo Gabba Gabba (how WEIRD is this show? But both kids love the music. Silas sings along with it all the time).
5. Dora (Dora is so bad, to me - the animation is bad, the voices are bad. But they are obviously doing something right, because they are teetering toward their second generation of Dora watchers, and my kids love it).
I'm with you - I wish my kids liked The Backyardigans as much as I do. Though more and more Curious George is my favorite. I now understand that George's character is modeled after a three-year-old boy. I know because half the time I'm pretty sure Curious George lives in my house.
Max and Ruby is an absolute STAPLE in our house! I love how wholesome it is and how patient Ruby is, if only I had the patience of an eight year old bunny....
Caillou is banned in our house, for the same reasons you banned it. Chloe whines incessently if she even sees a Caillou commercial. Ew.
We also love SuperWHY! And on Disney in the mornings after the 7:30 mickey mouse clubhouse they show the short Shaun the Sheep clips, and we love that too!
My 15 month old is a fan of Handy Manny and Imagination Movers, but we really have just started getting into "watching" tv...aka- plays nearby until he hears a song and then freezes until the song is over. I need to figure out what some of these channels ya'll are talking about are!
Oh boy, where do I begin?! lol
I hate the fact that I let the kids watch tv, but I can't stop doing it! That is so bad, I know.
Before we had our television hiatus, my son watched Playhouse Disney exclusively. (Mickey Mouse, Tigger and Pooh, and Handy Many)
Then during the year and a half without tv we checked out dvd's from the library and became big 'Thomas the Tank Engine fans and also 'Bob the Builder'. Also Backyardigans, (great show, my kids love it)
Then we got tv back recently and thanks to Noggin (now Nick Jr) we are really loving Max and Ruby (I was just wondering where their parents were this week!) Yo Gabba Gabba (we hesitate to let them watch but the lessons are great! like...
Don't throw things at your friends
and
If you drop food on the floor it has yucky germs on it! (these are songs too! lol)
Also my kids love Dora, Diego and Kai Lan.
Oh, and Wow,Wow Wubsy!
Little Bear is awesome too, and Blues Clues of course.
They have great online games for these shows that my 3 year old son is capable of navigating and playing on his own. This also has become a major helpful distraction in this house. I have begun setting a timer whenever he starts playing though, just to keep things under control!
Love your blog. . . just managed to link my favorite kid's shows not only to the appropriate post, but possibly to the favorite restaurants post? No idea how that happened. Sorry.
I like how Noggin repeats, over and over, "It's like preschool--on TV!" Because cable is much cheaper than ACTUAL preschool.I also like that "Max and Ruby" comes on at 5:30pm so I can get dinner ready while Ruby teaches Harper how wonderful it is to be a kind, gentle, longsuffering big sister to her little brother, in the total absence of any parental influence.
We also enjoy Little Bear and Olivia.
The current favorite for my 4 year old is SpongeBob. I know, I know, I know. I said they would NEVER watch it. 4th kid--what can I say?! They also really like Scooby Do and and I discovered recently when my middle son was very ill that Netflix has an almost endless supply of Scooby Do that you can watch INSTANTLY on-line. That was a huge lifesaver since he was quarantined from the living areas for 5 days! He also watched Voltron: Defender of the Universe on Netflix!! What boy doesn't love Voltron?!
The older kids will watch all the Disney and Nick shows I would let them, but I don't always like those, so I'll still put on PBS in the afternoon. They still love Fetch with Ruff Ruffman and CyberChase--great "learning" shows.
I know what you mean about Calliou---we thankfully stopped watching him years ago. I couldn't stand his voice!!
I think I linked this post to your last Friday Faves post too-OOPS! Really enjoy your blog.
We only get basic cable so we have to watch Disney channel stuff online. Of course we watch Handy Manny, Mickey Mouse clubhouse, Jungle Junction (new show). On DVD we watch Thomas, Auto B Good and Diego. And I'll admit, my first grader loves all 3 High School Musical movies. And I enjoy watching them too.
I'm going to have to search out Word Girl (anything like Word World?), The Vistorains/Tudors/Stuarts show and the Smile channel...not familiar with any of them and they sound like things I will be thankful to Missy for like the Seeds CDs and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (which I just finished this morning, also wanting to kiss the cover!)
Blessedly, my children are fans of the Backyardigans. I am a huge fan! Also big in our house are the Imagination Movers and the Upside Down Show - very imaginative. I think the hubs and I enjoy Phineas and Ferb as much as the kids do. Also very clever.
Yo Gabba Gabba ad Caillou jsutmake me tense and annoyed and I can't get past that. Your comment about not splashing the gasoline made me giggle!
I agree with you on #4. I do not like TBN for the same reasons, however their Smile channel is great. Some of the shows are a little old fashioned, but some are really cute.
My daughter starts every day with Caillou. I know the conundrum well. :-)
No one's mentioned one of my 4yo's favorites, "The Wonder Pets." It's all about team work and problem solving. Just beware, the song WILL get stuck in your head.
"The phone...the phone is ringing.." :)
Oh how I know Caillou. He is on ALL THE TIME in my house. My 2.5 year old loves him! Still trying to figure out why he is bald though. ;-)
http://theunexperiencedmom.blogspot.com/
Tamara
Our favorites are Word World, Sid, The Magic School Bus, Signing Times, and the Backyardigans. I'm sure they'd like all the rest too if I recorded them!
We love Wonder Pets, Yo Gabba Gabba and everything Elmo. There is a great show on at a weird time on Nick Jr. called Jack's Big Music Show that is fabulous and cute. We DVR it and my 2.5 year old watches it before bed. Check it out!
I must have missed this post when you wrote it! I love it!! It is so funny because I always hear parents complain about always hearing kid shows and being so excited for adult conversation, but to be perfectly honest, I love the shows my kids watch, except Yo, Gabba, Gabba (for some reason, I can't tolerate it)! But our list is very similar to yours. Max and Ruby and Cailliou at the top. And of course, Dora, Olivia. I have been sad lately thinking that it appears that the days of Blues Clues and Elmo are sadly in the past. *tear* My favorite, hands down is Handy Manny. I love it. And I always try to sneak the channel to Boomerang for some Flintstones, Smurfs, or Jestons. But it usually gets quickly turned back to Noggin/Nick Jr. Thanks for sharing!
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