jkr@gitpyr.UUCP (John Kenneth Riviere) (08/26/85)
(is there really a line-eater?)
I've been following these discussions for awhile and finally decided
to drop some comments of my own into it.
Re: cloth diapers
Our two-year-old has been in disposables from the beginning. I admit that
I let my wife do most of the evaluations of cost, but her survey of available
diaper services seemed to indicate that there was no cost saving to be had
over disposables along that route. Neither of us had any interest in washing
many (many, many, ...) diapers each week, so we went with the disposables.
We had one or two instances when our daughter decided to investigate the
tapes, but we discouraged that and it hasn't been a problem. Most rashes
have been attributable to circumstances which led to delayed diaper changing
when it was needed. I have no way of knowing if cloth diapers would have
been better in this regard. Overall we have been satisfied with the
disposables and will probably continue with them for our next child (in the
oven).
Re: TV
I admit it. We are couch potatoes. My wife loves old movies, old sitcoms
(especially I Love Lucy), and other things. We both are Braves fans (what
a disappointment this year has been) so we have baseball on almost every
day over the summer. We turn on Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers at our
daughter's insistence (I enjoy SS but not Mr. R. tho' my wife tells me that
she appreciates it more as she sees more of it). In short, we have the TV
on almost non-stop. In fact, Jessica (our daughter) wants the TV turned
on as soon as she comes into the house. However, she mostly ignores it.
Unlike the person (I forget who it was, sorry) who grew up almost completely
without TV and cannot tune it out, Jessica has a hard time paying any
attention at all to it. We read books and play games while it is on. She
would usually prefer to go outside, but it is difficult for her to get us
out of our couches :-). Overall, she seems to be developing such a high
tolerance of it that we have no chance to use it to babysit for us because
our daughter has no use for it other than as additional room lighting. Only
time will tell if this will change, and there are some things that will
GRAB her attention (usually commercials), but so far she does not seem to
be exhibiting the "typical" symptoms of children that watch too much TV.
At least, that is the way it seems to me from here.
-J. Kenneth Riviere
--
John Kenneth Riviere
Georgia Insitute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
...!{akgua,allegra,amd,hplabs,ihnp4,seismo,ut-ngp}!gatech!gitpyr!jkr