April 30, 2008

As long as we have cable

There's fast approaching the day when our family will be giving up television altogether. We don't watch it now much anyway. Mainly it's me with my need for news and the occasional National Geographic documentary on tornado chasers, the Ark of the Covenant or some other intriguing topic. We're peeved by the coming mandatory switch to digital and not only are we too cheap to buy a new t.v. just for this reason we are also too cheap to try to outfit the postage-stamp sized analog set we now have. (Okay, it's a little bigger than a postage stamp, but not by much.)

Until the day we cancel our cable subscription and pull the plug -- February 2009 is when the analog world becomes extinct, I think -- I'll be tuning in after my brood is in bed to watch "Jon and Kate Plus 8" (The Learning Channel 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. Monday)

I confess a growing morbid fascination with how these parents juggle life with a set of twins and a set of sextuplets. The sextuplets, three boys and three girls, were born just a few months before one of my children, so I delight in watching Jon and Kate Gosselin face off against a hoard of wild and wonderful three-year-olds.

I find myself listing to one side most evenings after keeping up with just one. :o)

Some folks think Kate is too demanding and Jon not demanding enough. Blogs abound with criticisms about the Gosselins' parenting style.

But with only half as many children as they have, my hat is off to them for surviving long enough to allow television cameras into their home.

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