"Instant" Family: Visual Crack

I'll admit it. I am one of those people that (heretofore) freely and openly ridicules parents who plop their kids down in front of mindless TV cartoon babysitters. Those people are just lazy, I thought. Wait'll I have kids. . . it'll be Mister-Freakin'-Wizard 24 hours a day. Educational entertainment. That's what I'm about.

As it turns out, the twins' favorite game is "continually smack your sister in the head with a large truck." This is followed closely on the laugh-o-meter by "push your sister down," "bite your sister hard enough to leave a visable scar that your parents will need to explain away to everyone," and (my personal favorite) "whack daddy in the nuts when he isn't looking." That last one gets 'em especially riled up! Funny stuff. Moreover, whatever game is being played, the accompanying musical score consists mainly of screaming, shouting and crying. Sometimes they scream together in complex harmonies. Sometimes W releases a virtually endless, dull, aching, low-pitched wail. I imagine it sounds and feels much like sitting on the business end of full bagpipes.

As a lover of sonal solitude, I had come to the realization (acceptance?) that nothing on God's green Earth could make them sit still and not kill each other for more than 17 seconds (I have timed them -- it's honestly the record). Nothing, apparently, except the Teletubbies. On Mommy Relcuk's advice, and when Daddy was left alone to watch the Twinkies one evening, Daddy popped in a Teletubbies DVD. It was instant crystal meth. In mid-shriek -- and W in mid-punch -- both girls froze, marched soundlessly over to the front of the couch, plopped down zombified, and watched the show. Pupils dilated. Mouth hung open. Narry a movement and not a peep.

Don't believe me? I captured the whole thing with scientific-style time-lapsed photography. I snuck up behind the girls every five minutes during the program and captured the following photographic evidence. Some are a bit blurry because I had a bag of chips in my other hand (good science requires nourishment). Note that as the Teletubbies story unfolds on the TV, the twins never flinch. 5 minutes. 10 minutes. 20 minutes. . .It was amazing. It was impossible.