The blessing and curse of TV

Geoff thought I should post about this and since he rarely (or never) says that, I thought I should honor his request:

S has never been much for TV - mainly by design and partly by his personality, he would choose being outside and running around, or any other physical activity really, over TV any day - and we have done our best to encourage that. With that said, I recognize the need for some peace and quiet around the house every so often, if only for 15 minutes, and can certainly appreciate TVs ability to bring that on.

Part two of this story - S was sick last week and unable to go to daycare. He's rarely sick and when he has had to stay home, it hasn't been a problem to coordinate between Geoff and I - not so last week. Everything that could have gone wrong did, so I ended up staying home with S, but had a 3 hour meeting that I couldn't really miss - so yes, this meant a 3 hr phone meeting and a kid who doesn't sit and watch TV or even play by himself very well or very quietly. So for three hours S watched a video for 15 minutes or so, paused it (fortunately he has mastered this skill), did a puzzle or some other activity, then watched a few more minutes, etc. etc. He spent the morning running back and forth between rooms, often trying to get my attention. Because he wasn't feeling well, he was much more low key than usual.

In the end, the kid I don't want to sit and watch TV, did what we wanted, only this time I really wanted him to watch TV and was just wishing he could get engrossed in a movie for an hour or two - ironic and our fault, I know.