Saturday, September 27, 2008

The TV is Skipping

This little story gives a little bit of visibility into the relationship between my children. Although, over the last year, it has greatly improved, my two children are not the most compatible or happiest of siblings. My dreams of hand-holding lovebugs flew out the window a long time ago. I live in a more realistic world now. Anyhow, on to the story...

For the last few weeks, the cable has been skipping. There seems to be some minor, intermittent interference with certain channels, Sprout being one of them. When it first happened, it disturbed Elena immensely and she made me explain all about satellite transmission and cable reception. Finally, I just summed it up by saying, "The TV is skipping." She would then announce loudly that the TV was, AGAIN, skipping all the time.

A week or so later, Liam had picked up on this. Now, when the TV skipped, the scene unfolded like this:

TV: skip skip skip

Liam: tee-bee skip-ping, tee-bee skip-ping (I haven't mentioned this before, but he does repeat everything twice, which is a bit odd)

Elena [flying in from other room]: NO WEEUM! DON'T TELL ME IT'S SKIPPING! STOP IT!!! (no clue why it bugs her so, but it REALLY bugs her, sometimes she would even smack him or shove him...sigh)

Liam [looking shocked and trailing off]: skipppp...

Mommy [entering room, looking perturbed]: What is the problem? Why can't he say what he wants? Why can't you let him notice that the TV is skipping? [then she walks out muttering and berating herself for getting involved when she knows she shouldn't]

So, that scene has repeated dozens of times in the last month, with me becoming more numb to it and getting less and less involved and Liam getting smart enough to keep his mouth shut about the TV skipping...

This morning, Elena was upstairs and no where near. The TV skipped and I watched Liam, alone in the room, to see him react to it. I waited through about four skips before I said to him, "Hey, is that TV skipping?" (am I an instigator? maybe...) What was his reaction?

"NO MOMMY!!!! STOP IT!!! NO! STOP IT!"
Guess he's picked up a little something from his sister, huh?

2 comments:

Lorraine said...

I really laughed out loud at this one. Way to portray the scene!

Oliver also echoes Amelia's tone and attitude, but with his own words. So he'll stamp his foot, rapid-fire point his arm, and say "I.NOT.DOING.IT.RIGHT.NOW!!"

Lisa said...

Ah...It happens here too. Sarah has taken to saying, "It's NOT FAAAIIRRR!" about everything. She didn't get that from me...I hardly ever say that out loud.

;-)