Turn your kid into a couch potato in 7 days

My two year-old daughter has been kept away from the TV as much as possible until recently.  Most books say to wait until they're two before introducing TV and that was just fine with us.  She watched Baby Einstein a few times when she was little, but that was it.  Then she got sick recently and really didn't feel up to much of anything, so we went down the dark path...

J discovered Dora the Explorer first.  Lucky for us, a study recently came out that some of it is actually educational for kids.  Our daughter is learning some songs, letters of the alphabet and counting.  The show has a linear, simplistic pattern that works well for the little ones.  She's now totally hooked.  She gets up in the morning and asks for Dora.  She negotiates asking to "watch Dora a couple more minutes?!" with her angelic little eyes.  We're doomed.

Before our party by Disney, I decided to introduce J to the characters and she fell in love with Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.  She went to the party and just adored Minnie and Mickey, spent half the party snuggling with them.  She's not as big a fan of that show because it's a little more complex than Dora, but she loves the intro theme and likes to watch it over and over again, like an animated music video she's editing.

All of this, for those of you who want to make your kid into a couch potato, took under a week.  If you slowly add in more new episodes, particularly if you TiVo them and can watch over and over again, you'll find yourself with new shrink fodder - how to get the various songs from the shows out of your head.  We culminated our week by watching Flushed Away, a hilarious, animated British film that was way over our daughter's head, but she enjoyed watching the rats and trying popcorn.  Now if the sun will just come back so we can reprogram her to more time at the park.