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? 

Consignment Sale Shopping

These kiddos are expensive!  In addition to all the diapers and formula and doctor bills that we're buying our little man is going through clothes like nobody's business.  Seriously, we wear an outfit a couple of times before we've outgrown it.  It's just plain rediculous how fast they grow at this age. 

Given how fast these little babies grow up, I don't see any reason for purchasing new items at $10 an outfit.  I can get clothes that are in wonderful shape and are gently used at the local consignment sales that typically happen twice a year.  I went today and spent $40 and ended up with 13 clothing items, 3 Dr Brown's Bottles (normally $20 consigned for $8), a dishwasher basket (new $3, consigned $1), a sun screen for the car window (consigned for $1), and a new summer hat to keep the sun off of little man's face for just $2.  I estimate that if I'd purchased all of this new I'd have spent about $96.  So I consider today's haul a good day. 

While shopping today I realized 2 important things...
1.  I should not be buying more clothes in BabyE's current size.  I should be buying a size or two ahead of where he is now so that he will actually get to wear the clothes that I buy. 
2.  I've been to 4 sales so far this spring and gotten a thing or two at each of them but I haven't yet shopped on a 1/2 price day.  This habbit has seriously got to stop!  If I'm looking for something special (a new pack-n-play, a swing, a high chair, etc.) it's worth the extra to get first pick of the loot.  If I'm just looking for clothes and other things we might need in the future I can wait until the half price days to shop.  In the future, I may pick one sale each fall and spring to go to on the first day and get the things we really need and a few cute outfits.  All the other sales I will limit myself to half-price days only. At the larger sales there will be plenty left on the first 1/2 price day and I'll save way more. 

In my area I can find 10 consignment sales that won't be too hard to get to every fall or spring.  I'll probably actually make it to less than half of those but I have every opportunity to think through and actually get what we need without having to buy retail.  These sales are spaced out over roughly a 4 month period each fall and spring so managing to get to the sales shouldn't be a problem.  I'll consign items at one or two of the sales that I decide to shop early at (probably the smaller sales) the others I'll just drop by on the public shopping days.

If you're expecting a baby or already have one, you've got to check out some of these sales.  There are great bargains that can save you some cash and we can all use some extra cash in our pockets.