Kill the TV!!

I prided myself on keeping our home television free for the first two years of my childrens' lives.  I made myself a vow that as a stay at home Mom I would NOT watch TV in the daytime.  At night, I'm usually too tired to care.  I grew up in a home where the TV was always on and I've always found it distracting.  I hate hearing the background noise of television or having to see another person in the throws of a slack-jawed TV induced coma.  Throw in a possible link with early exposure to television and ADD and I knew it had no part in my home.  The television will NEVER babysit my children.

Well, that's one of those "not my kids" statements that I can toss out of the window.  I can't explain why  I let my three year old became addicted to the television.  I started to notice the trend when I was fat, tired, hot and very pregnant with my second child.  My then two year old LOVED to watch videos on the VCR in the cool of our basement.  I saw no reason to argue.  I could catch a quasi nap while he was locked into the screen.  Then he learned that the buttons on the front of the VCR did something.  The machine lasted about a week.  Then we graduated to DVDs on the computer (said DVDs previously lived in the minivan and were life-savers on car trips).  Then a funny thing started happening.

We learned that our son has an incredible memory for one liners from movies.  He's also pretty good with commercials.  This can be hilarious or horrible depending on the context.  I overheard an interesting conversation between my husband and son.  He sang Nationwide is on your siiiiide! His father said, "no son.  The insurance company is never really on your side."  As entertaining as commercials can be when sung at maximum volume in the car, its the movie lines that crack me up.  He's been stuck on "don't stand so close, I can smell your breath" for about a week now.  It makes me want to pinch him every time he says it. I much preferred his saying to anyone who'd listen "you have no sense of humor!"  Now that I'm working out of the home and the kids are with Dad, I have no control over the TV any more.  I'm assuming that its on during the day as I heard a new one Saturday night.  I was enjoying a quiet moment in the kitchen with the husband when a giggly three year old burst into the room and announced "what in THE HELL is going on in here?!?!" 

My kid was never going to say that.  Is it too late to kill theTV?