For the Love of the Housewives

Carson is starting to develop his own taste and appreciation of television shows and movies.  He has the standard favorites of Mickey Mouse, Jimmy Neutron, and Sesame Street, but then will surprise me every once in a while by enjoying shows like Enchanted or Miss Spider's Sunny Patch Friends.  But, the biggest surprise of all came 2 weeks ago while Ben and I were trying to catch up on our TiVo shows.  

Just after we moved in, we didn't have our TiVo set up fast enough and we missed 1 episode of Desperate Housewives.  We didn't want to watch any of the succeeding episodes until we were able to view the one we missed (yes, probably sounds ridiculous to most - but it's Housewives, man).  Because of our difficulty finding the missed program, and our busy lives (yes, our lives really are busy - despite what I am leading to believe based on this post), we ended up with 5 recorded Housewives shows on our TiVo, plus the one we were still missing.  After much searching, Ben was able to locate the lost episode and we finally watched it.  After that, we watched a different Desperate Housewives show every night last week - just trying to get caught up.  By the time we were on our last 2 episodes, Carson started really paying attention to what we were watching, to the point that he was on my lap, laughing with the rest of us.  He watched the next day's episode completely - and profoundly exclaimed at the end,  "Mama, I love this show."  This past Sunday was the newest release (although it's past his bedtime), so he had a whole plan laid out that we would watch it together after his Monday nap.  When we sat down to watch the show, he was again very eager and interested in all going-ons of Wisteria Lane.  At the conclusion of the episode (when they normally show previews of the next show), the announcer said that Carson's beloved Housewives would not air again for another 3 weeks.  When the realization of this sunk into Carson, he could hardly contain himself.  He cried for almost 30 minutes, trying desperately to negotiate any way of watching it sooner - to no avail.

After realizing the effect that one show can have on a tiny little mind, Ben and I started getting a little more careful in our screening process of which shows we would watch when the kids were awake - unfortunately, we were too late with Desperate Housewives.  But, if anyone ever misses an episode of the Housewives, I'm sure that my 4-year-old son can catch you up (sigh).