TV or not TV, that is the question

Only have I just managed to deaden the guilt of (pick one, two or any of the following), BPA bottles, pollution, going back to work, breast feeding, starting to exercise and spending time away from Eve etc etc etc and up pops a new one in the form of the TV.

There is no doubt that, even at 17 weeks (as she turned yesterday) the TV has an allure for Eve. In the way of Boys and their toys, when we moved to this flat the Boy ditched the old, and perfectly servicable, TV and bought a flat screen black behemouth that stares aggressively at me from the wall. In the great scheme of TVs in HK, and we once ended up at a colleague's place where the boys marveled at the TV and surround sound while the women shouted over the noise, it is pretty inoffensive but it still dominates one wall. We rarely have the TV on when Eve is around. A side street to my main guilt about not spending every waking hour with Eve is the idea that when we do she should have our full attention.

However, sometimes it is on when she is around and she is magnetically drawn to the moving, colourful pictures and sounds that it emits. Whereas she is normally a chirpy, squirmy, chatting thing - when she is in front of the TV she is silent and still. For this reason I can see why people use it to babysit their babies, but it also slightly horrifies me that even at this age it has such a behavioural effect.

Therefore, we are pretty much sticking to the no TV rule until such a time that her language and attention is good enough to actually interact rather than just stare.

The exception to this is sport. Earlier this week she watched the extra time of the Chelsea vs. Liverpool champions league game with me, and yesterday Man United thrashing West Ham with the Boy. She will, of course, be watching the Olympic rowing come the summer.