Fixed on Elmo

Elmo is a baby narcotic. And red, furry substance abuse abounds in our household. How did this happen?

We have barely exposed Finn to television, save for a few glimpses when he sat up during a break from nursing on Jen's lap, or took a peak from the dinner table on election night. You could tell that he sorta knew that the television was something of a big, magical book, where the characters moved and talked and you didn't have to trouble yourself with the flipping of pages. But, beyond that, he didn't seem to have much concern for it. Which suited us just fine.

About two weeks ago, we exposed him to an Elmo DVD, a seemingly harmless introduction to boob tubing. They're basically all the same. Elmo and his friends discover something cool, like world music or dancing, and riff on it for 20 minutes. There's lots of cute kids and cute puppets doing cute things. Even viewing them as an adult, though, there is a hallucinogenic quality to the episodes, with real people and Muppet people in innocent interplay amid two-dimensional settings, often with quasi-psychedelic motifs. It's a trip.

Since first exposure barely two weeks ago, Finn has not only learned how to say "Elmo," he has also developed the word "watch," and further, and this is the kicker, has now mastered the more complete concept, which he communicates with relentless repetition, in full-on declarative and with pointer finger extended toward the screen: "watch Elmo." Just rapid-fire development, a pace at which some sort of illicit substance must be at play.

Anyway, this has become a daily occurrence, and will doubtless quickly turn even more frequent and likely more fervent should we parents deny the poor child his fix for any length of time and withdrawal sets in.

--JAC