My two year old can work my iPhone. He can work that sucker independently, make phone calls to China, send texts, download apps, randomly FaceTime his dad, pick out games in the "Liam games" folder. He can also break into the settings and jack my phone up to the point where I have to call my husband, the Apple junkie, also known as tech support; to help me piece it back together. I am pretty sure at age two, I still was blissfully unaware a telephone existed.
He can also find the XBox controller and ask my husband to play games while he watches enthralled. Reason number 852 as to why I didn't want a video gaming system in the house. He can independently program the DVR remote and accurately change television channels. I am not telling you this to brag about my two year old's genius level of intelligence. Oh no. Not one bit. These little nuances of my child bother me. Bother me A. LOT. As a child, I ran around outside from morning til night, riding bikes, playing, swimming, exploring. Just playing outside. There was none of this Nick Jr crap on the TV to entertain us. None of this "it's preschool on TV, 24 hours a day". Are you kidding me? Put the remote control down before someone get hurt. The average young person spends SEVEN hours a day on the computer or in front of the TV. That's insane. Now that it's winter, I try to fill my toddler's day with coloring, playdoh, book reading and other activities that feed the brain. When we actually get snow - it's time to pack up and go play in it!
The average young child spends fifty percent less time outdoors that we did as children. Fifty percent less time. Holy cow. But I guess all that TV watching and social networking and tweeting and gaming is so taxing on a young person's soul. My husband and I personally can't wait to introduce our son to a tiny tricycle this summer and get him to have the same love for bike riding that we had as kids. It was one of the criteria we had in house hunting - it had to be a good bike riding neighborhood. During spring, summer and fall, we make it mandatory that we are outside for a good portion of the day and set up an inflatable kiddie pool to beat the heat so that there are no excuses.
1 in 3 young children are now overweight or obese. I fight every day to make sure my children don't fall into that trap. I fight everyday to make sure myself and my husband don't fall into that trap. Rock on Michelle Obama. You can tell this middle American family what to eat any day of the week. We're listening.
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