Mixing a bowl of Cheerios bright and early this morning before the girls got ready for daycare, I sat them in their high chairs and turned the TV on. Little Bill was playing and as I fed the kids, I was drawn into the simple tale of a boy trying to find this ‘thing’. He dad has a thing for Jazz music, his mom a thing for Photography, his siblings are into chess. The episode concludes with him discovering he has a ‘thing’ for telling stories.

Simple and sappy as it sounds, I loved it as I do most of the kiddie programs that air at the not so prime time in baby-land. It also set me thinking. What if you never really found your thing? What if you do find your thing but can’t pursue it for reasons like stereotyping or peer pressure? Growing up, my thing was books. I found it an enchanting place where I could disappear for hours and forget about the world outside. I lived vicariously through the characters. I imbibed their attitudes, their spirit of adventure as they went through the tale. Often times my real and imaginary worlds merged and clashed. I found a love for words. I would finger new words, feel them roll on my tongue, test them in sample sentences and relish the pleasure that came from using them in appropriate situations.

As I snapped back into the present from my rambling thoughts, I wondered why programs such as these were relegated to offbeat time slots. Why programs like Dora and Diego were so popular when they were so mind-numbingly dumb? Is there really such a thing as ‘good’ TV watching? Guess there are no right answers to these questions and each person has their take on it.

Just rambling. Happy Wednesday folks!