No fast forwarding necessary.

Do you remember when you were a kid? You’d get up early on Saturday mornings to watch the Laff-a-Lympics, and you were always disappointed when Soul Train came on because it meant that Saturday morning was officially ‘over'... but maybe just the teensiest bit relieved because then you could finally run to the bathroom to pee.

Or was that just me?

Maybe you were watching ‘Land of the Lost’ with Marshall, Will, and Holly, on their routine expedition, halfway through a can of Tab, and all of a sudden, your soda is making you sit up and take notice.

What were your options?

1. Go to the bathroom, and risk missing something vital to the story line. You just never KNEW what was going to happen with those damn Sleestak.

2. Just hold it, be miserable, and wait for a commercial.

At the risk of sounding old, I have to say… kids these days just don’t know how easy they have it. Movies on DVD, DVR’s, video games, a DVD in the van, the ability to pause live T.V.,… (let me say it again… PAUSE live T.V.!!)


My kids just hop up, say, “Pause it, please!”, and run to the potty. Want to watch that part again? No problem… rewind it. Boring commercial? Fast forward. You can’t hear Oprah because the kids are arguing upstairs? (Um…so yeah. That would be me… I mean, Phil. ;)

And it’s not like my kids even watch that much television. It’s just that they’re so used to being able to fast-forward through boring commercials, or pause what they’re watching, that they don’t have to worry about missing the things they really *do* want to see.

That is, unless a scheming brother or sister has control of the remote, and they’ve promised to not start the movie while you run upstairs to get your favorite action figure, and they “absolutely won’t watch it until you get back… promise!”, and then… well, you know exactly what happens.

You may have even heard the screaming that ensues from your house.

I’ve even been know to use the awesome pause feature to get a few things done around the house without nagging.

“I’m pausing the movie for 15 minutes. I hope you can get your room clean, the bathroom floor mopped where you splashed water from the shower, the Legos picked up from the playroom floor, your Christmas thank you notes written, and your homework finished in that time.

(Just kidding, people.)


(Those Legos are never getting cleaned up.)




I didn’t realize how pervasive it had become in our household, though, until the other day.

It was an idyllic quiet afternoon. Yesssss. It can *actually* be idyllic around here. And quiet. For about 4 and a half minutes.

Anyway, Josie was doing her homework at the kitchen table, I was baking cookies (okay, so they were 'Slice and Bake'. Sue me.), and Davis was reading a book to Libby (aw… so sweet).

Well, Davis was reading all about how Anakin Skywalker was decloaking the stealth ship and firing four proton torpedoes at the enemy ship which then put its thermal shields up just in time, blocking the incoming missiles.

(Sure, he’ll read to her. It’s just that *he* gets to choose the book.)

So about halfway through the book, Libby interrupted him.

Libby: “Excuse me, but I need to go potty. Can you stop reading for just one second? I’ll be right back!”















Well… that’s what I *wish* she’d said. What did she actually say?




Yep. “PAUSE IT!”