The Boob Tube

I have never wanted to be one of those parents who sets their child(ren) in front of the TV and disappears. But I have to admit, some days TV is my friend. It can be next to impossible to accomplish any chores without a distraction for the kids.
I try to limit what my daughters watch, I really do. But now and then, we spend a day camped out on the couch. We don't have cable, so we are restricted to PBS, Qubo and our own DVDs. At least I'm showing them educational things, right?
During the summer we were out and about most mornings, usually at the pool or the park. Now, with school back in session, my daughters are gone all morning. In the afternoon I'm either shuttling them to appointments or trying to do housework.
Yesterday was a good example of a "TV day." I was still cleaning up from their birthday party, doing laundry and trying to clean all three of our bathrooms, too. While they were at school I managed to do some of the laundry and steam mop the kitchen floor. Unfortunately, I then managed to shatter a glass on the kitchen floor and spent the rest of the morning cleaning up shards of glass and figuring out how to wedge a few shattered pieces out of the wood. So during the afternoon I was scrambling to clean three bathrooms and the rest of the kitchen. I did it, thanks to the distraction of TV. After lunch my daughters watched Kung Fu Panda and then a few shows on Qubo.
Nobody's perfect. The housework had been neglected long enough. Now that it's done we can get back to better activities, such as coloring and playing with their new magnetic dolls.