My 22 month old twins used to wake up and I could hear : “Mama? Dada?” over the monitor every morning.  What a warm, delicious rush that was, to know that these two little spawn of mine wanted me the second they woke up. I (or my husband) was the first thing on their little baby minds.

Then it happened.

I got a Sesame Street video that had Elmo in it, and all that love for mama went to a little, furry, red creature that laughs at everything.  Now the first thing I hear in the morning is: “Emmo? Emmo? Mama? Emmo? MAMA EMMO??!!”  The words get more frantic as I walk up the stairs to their room.  I don’t even have the chance to change their clothes, because as soon as I lift their little 22 pound bodies out of the crib they are ass backwards sliding down the steps on their stomachs faster than you can blink, and in the living room grabbing every remote they can find and pointing it to the TV. They know one of them makes Elmo come on.

I don’t have a lot of stamina to say no.  I just put it in. They ignore it a lot and we play in other rooms. My husband, on the other hand, like to tell the kids “no, Elmo, he died” or something to that effect, and refuses to put it on.  He will pop a video in, though, when he needs to get something done, so he uses Elmo for personal gain.

I went on Amazon not too long ago and ordered about eight videos so I wouldn’t have to watch the same one over and over, and I have to admit, I like it.  The format is the same each time for “Elmo’s World”, and my little Andy always knows when Elmo is going to ask a baby something, and gets this sweet grin and points and says “BABY?”  That is very cute.

What is not cute is the screaming hellfire temper tantrums that occur when I say: “NO ELMO”.  Holy moly, you’d have thought I was roasting them over an open fire when I say no to him.  Lately, they believe me when I say Elmo has to take a nap, but I know this isn’t going to last.

I guess I should be grateful they aren’t into Yo Gabba Gabba yet, those things give me the heebs…