I noticed something. When the kids are at my house, for some reason I turn on the TV and leave it on Noggin. Then the children go here, there, and everywhere playing who knows what. The only one watching Noggin is me.

This afternoon I caught myself thinking, “Intolerable. I can’t stand one more minute of Moose A. Moose and his little friend Z.” And then I looked around, realized that as usual I’m the only one watching and I turned it off.

Those kids don’t watch TV. They play, and they play hard…all over the house.

This afternoon they were being dogs. This meant that they did everything the Chihuahuas do. For quite a while both of them were up on the back of the living room sofa barking at passers-by. Yapping furiously. Then they came and whined, scratched at me until I guessed that they wanted water and I had to give it to them in two bowls on the floor.

Each of them had an afghan in his/her mouth, dragged it all over the house, shook it, rolled on it, tossed it around. All very…uh…dynamic. Most of the time they were upstairs. I’m afraid to go up there and look.

They have a lot of fun at my house because I hardly ever say, “No.” As long as no one’s crying, they can do as they please.

One thing they’ve never done is to stand around whining at me to find something for them to do. They’re never at a loss for ideas and they don’t get bored. Wonderful children. Active, positive, cheerful, full of fun.

Sometimes it might be nice to have them sit quietly and watch a bit of kiddie TV. However, now that I’ve come to my senses, there will be no more nonsense about ME doing that.