Beautiful - Mickey Mouse Clubhouse

Lately, Baby E has discovered that the television is more than a large box that makes noise in our house.  He has begun to actually watch the TV.  He is especially fond of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse on the Disney channel and I think it's wonderful. 

Now I know that saying that television is a good thing for a 10 month old to notice is highly controversial these days.  I've read the articles and books that say we shouldn't even expose children under 3 or 4 to television.  But, let's face it, most of us live in the real world.  At my house, if we're home and awake, the television is most likely on.  We might not even be watching it, but it makes some noise and I can usually check the news as I'm going by while doing laundry, cleaning, chasing Eli, etc. 

My personal belief on television is that if it becomes a problem, we'll set some reasonable limits for our children and stick to them.  For the most part, our TV stays on the news or some semi-educational programming (History Channel, Discovery, NatGeo, etc) or on the news.  So I don't necessarily mind it being on when Baby E is in the room. For the most part he ignores it and plays and does his own thing.  As long as that it the case and whatever is on is reasonably child friendly, I'm fine with him being exposed to the television.  B and I can watch more adult programming after Baby E is in bed (if we can stay awake long enough). 

Once a night though, we try to turn on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse for Baby E.  I've started recording it with the DVR so we can just start and stop it whenever we want.  Baby E LOVES it.  There is lots of shape naming, counting, some problem solving, and at the end you get to do the hot dog dance.  The hot dog dance is definately Baby E's favorite part.  He loves to sing and dance along with his favorite characters on the television.  Sometimes we even skip parts of the rest of the show just to do the hot dog dance.  While he's watching it gives us (Mom and Dad) a chance to talk with him about what he's seeing and to count and play along with the television. 

Personally, I can't find anything bad about baby E watching this 20 minutes of TV a night.  He enjoys it a great deal and it's semi-educational.  My personal belief is that television watching for children is like anything else... as long as it's done in moderation there is nothing wrong with it.  As Baby E grows if I find that he'd rather spend a nice warm day in front of the television than outside playing, we'll set some ground rules and limits then.  I like to think I'll someday approach other things (eating sweets, video games, etc.) with the same sort of balanced logic. 

What are your thoughts about television for little ones?  For, against, neutral and why?