Tickle Me or Kill Me?...

A furry red monster has moved into our home. Rather, he's INVADED it.

Tee Jay and I do not like the idea of sitting Casey in front of the TV on a regular basis, so shortly after she was born, we moved our living room set to the basement. We gave up our obsession with DVR'ing and canceled our cable subscription, and then when the bunny ears and digital converter box began to fail, we renewed again - but this time for the bare minimum basic package. (Meaning that for about $6/month, we can tune into ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, and PBS. And that's about it, folks.)

However... we're big fans of the computer, so as she grew, Casey became more interested in doing Mommy and Daddy things. And when she tried to use our keyboard and mouse, we figured we'd find something fun to show her online.

By plugging "Sesame Street Celebrities" into youtube, we stumbled across this cute little number (four!) by Fiest:


Casey seemed to enjoy herself, so we added a couple of different alphabet songs (Elmo with India Arie - and lots of monsters with Miles) and fun spinoffs (Norah Jones lamenting for the letter "Y," the Goo Goo Dolls singing to Elmo about being proud, etc.) to our repertoire.

Granted, we knew that Elmo starred in a couple of these videos. We knew his name was mentioned a few times. But we never said to Casey, "Let's go watch Elmo!" We'd just occasionally pull her into our laps for a quick song when she was bugging us about our time on Facebook. (She obviously wasn't asking us to get off of Blogger, since... we never post! Sorry!)

So, imagine our surprise one evening this week when I was at the kitchen sink telling Tee Jay something about our nephew and Elmo, and from her high chair, we heard a clear, perfect "EL-MO." Tee Jay said, "Did she just say Elmo?" "Uh, I think so." We both turned around to look at Casey, who repeated "EL-MO" and then put up her little palms and shrugged her shoulders, as if to ask "Where did he go??"

To make the connection more complete, she then craned her neck to the left and turned around as much as possible, pointing into the living room at the computer. "EL-MO." And Elmo it was. We rewarded our girl with three, four, or maybe five video viewings that night.

However, her thirst hadn't been satisfied and the requests haven't stopped. Casey asks for Elmo anytime the computer is in her view (we've even started closing the rolltop desk, hoping that "out of sight - out of mind" works), she asks for Elmo while getting ready in the morning, and she asks for Elmo in the car driving home each evening.

How is it, that no matter what, this furry red monster always seems to steal children's hearts??

Thankfully, I don't find Elmo as annoying as other kids' obsessions (like Barney - oh, shoot me if she ever learns who he is...). We don't watch Sesame Street and we don't own Elmo's World videos, so our limited exposure is in the cute mostly-sung-by-famous-folks internet videos.

We headed to Target tonight as a family in search of something "EL-MO" for Casey, so that the computer is not the only way to fulfill her. Though her Daddy thought it was fun to make all of the talking, walking, shaking, tickle-me, and whatnot Elmo dolls do their thing (talking, walking, shaking, tickle-laughing, etc.) in the toy aisle, I'm pleased that we brought home the ever-quiet Elmo coloring book, Elmo waterproof bathtub book, and a little red furry, huggable, lovable, no-batteries-necessary stuffed Elmo.

It amazed me, walking out of the store, that Casey has her first real character "lovey." Is she really that grown up?? I wonder what comes next...


(And there are no pictures yet, as the kiddo will NOT keep still with her new Elmo items!)