When I was pregnant, I did all sorts of research about raising a happy, healthy child. There were a lot of sources that said you shouldn’t let your young (under 2) child watch any TV at all. We broke that rule with Signing Time, and it was definitely worth it. There were also the occasional Baby Einstein videos, but they weren’t (and still aren’t) Carrie’s favorites. Then she discovered Blue’s Clues. Honestly, I can’t even remember how that happened. Now, her favorite show is Sesame Street. (El-bo! El-bo!)
Before the trip I bought a few Sesame Street DVDs, including Kids’ Favorite Songs. Today, Carrie climbed up on the piano bench and started plunking out random notes and singing Twinkle, Twinkle – except it sounds more like “qwing-ko”. She has quite a repetoire of songs now: Baa Baa Black Sheep, Row Row Row Your Boat, the alphabet song, and Old MacDonald. All of these songs are things I’ve sung for her many, many times in her lifetime. Did she sing them before we got the video? No. She started singing all of those songs (except the alphabet song) after she started watching the video. Plus, the other day she counted backwards from ten with no prompting at all – which is another thing that video shows.
I don’t know what kind of power Elmo has over kids, but I dearly hope he only ever uses it for good. If Elmo ever turns evil, we’re all in trouble.