Couch Potato

Picture taken on Valentines day of this year

Last night Charlie woke up with a fever. After I gave him some medicine, we snuggled on the couch and watched a riveting 40+ minutes of Kipper the dog (some weird cartoon we found on Netflix). Thankfully, it was just what our little chap needed and when it was all done, he was able to finally fall back asleep. We Siegs generally don't watch much, but there is something about being sick that seems to require a little couch potato time.

When I was little, my mom had a rule that we could only watch 30 minutes of cartoons a day. After that, we were forced to turn it off so that we could be active or to use our little brains. Since 30 minutes never seemed like enough, we didn't like this very much. There was at least one time when we revolted by staying in front of the turned off television staring at the blank screen to prove to her that she couldn't make us do anything worthwhile. My mom was never paid enough.... Although we only had 30 minutes generally, when we were sick we could watch a lot more. For this reason, another post-tv-time found Marshall and I eating all sorts of plants, etc. in our backyard in hopes that we would get sick enough to watch more of Nickelodeon's Pinwheel. Too bad it didn't work. We foolishly ate the non-poisonous part of the oleander plant. Get's ya every time.

Unfortunatly for our TV addictions, we were fairly healthy kids. However, I do have several memories of getting pulled out of my bed on nights when I wasn't feeling well and getting to snuggle on my dad's lap. While we watched an old black and white version of the comic, Dagwood or listening to a musical performance of the song, Matilda, (my dad would often sing to me with my name inserted instead), I would drink juice and suck on ice cubes. TV just soothes the soul.