The other day, The KingofHearts took The Dormouse to the store with him while I stayed back doing important lazy pregnant woman things, like lying on the couch. (Hey! It's a lotta work!)

When he got back he said, "We need to watch less television in front of her." But what he really meant was You need to watch less television in front of her.

Then he related a story to me about how she'd announced from the back seat of the car out of the blue: "When you kill someone, blood squirts out of their neck. But not if you hit them in the head, then nothing happens."

I try very hard not to watch my CSIs and Mediums while The Dormouse is around watching. When she was smaller, she paid absolutely no attention to television whatsoever so it was easy. If the TV was on, whether it was CNN or Baby Einstein, she wasn't the slightest bit interested. I was very proud of myself, being the television addict that I am, that I was raising a child that didn't care much for TV. While I cannot give up my own television habit, I'd like to think I can teach my children a better way, you know?

But then about a year ago, everything changed. She discovered The Disney Channel and cartoons and that was the end. I can easily minimize my television addiction because I manage to do lots of things while watching: clean the house, get dressed, read, blog, work... But The Dormouse, like her father, is physically unable to accomplish even the smallest of tasks while the television is on. Her mouth hangs open and all other ongoing events in the world blur and fade away from existence. She has trouble doing even something simple like putting on her socks with the TV as companion and we often have to turn it off just to get her to finish the sock-putting-on-exercise, then turn it back on when she's done if it's something she was watching. While KoH is also patently unable to do anything besides drool while the television is on, he's not as into the shows as I am and can easily go without it much longer than I'm willing. So this exposure to violence this early in life is clearly my fault right?

The other night, KoH had his little collection of friends over for pizza. I was feeling my nightly exhaustion and chose six pm as my bedtime (don't judge me!), so he had The Dormouse in the room with them while they were sitting around talking. I woke up for a bit... long enough to overhear the following conversation from the other room:

One dude: "He could feel it in his entrails."

Other dude: "He felt it in his 'entrails'? Is that the right word?"

Other dude: "No... I'd say when you feel something, you feel it in your 'bowels'. Not in your 'entrails'."

Other dude: "Aren't they the same thing?"

Other dude: "When they're inside your body, they're 'bowels'. When they're outside your body, they're 'entrails'."

This is the kind of important stuff they discuss. I shook my head to myself from the other room and went back to sleep. When everyone left, KoH put The Dormouse to bed and I didn't think anything else of it until the next morning when I was fixing breakfast before taking her to preschool. While eating her cereal, she gave me this lecture:

"Mom, I have a bowl inside of me."

"What?"

"A bowl. I have bowls inside of me."

"I don't get it."

"But I don't have trails inside of me... Trails are outside of your body."

I no longer think the problem is that our daughter sees too much of my television programming.