Reading and TV

Time to brag something on my blog. 🙂 Our son is about to complete one year and he has not seen TV. Not just TV, we did not let him watch any videos on phone or iPad as well. Yayy! We resolved to not make him sit in front of TV until he completes one year and we achieved it finally. That means we had to sacrifice TV ourselves.

We have only switched on the TV twice in front of him – once during Superbowl for half an hour (for Coldplay) and once during Oscars this year. Both the times, he was busy playing and had no interest in watching TV. We once made him watch a cartoon but again he was not interested. Couple of times when we went to visit the doctor, he saw TV for few minutes and even laughed when a cartoon was playing. But after few minutes, he lost interest in watching the show. But he loves books! Given a choice between toys and books, he picks books. I am so proud of him. He loves flipping through the pages of his favorite books. He laughs when I pick his favorite book to read. I am not sure how much of the story he understands but he loves reading books. Since he loves books, mommy is going crazy buying tons of books for him. Now that we have achieved the one year target, I am trying to see if we can restrict TV until he is 3 years old. We are planning to show few cartoons and not completely restrict TV but I want to limit the time that he spends in front of the idiot box to say 30 minutes in two days or so. Let me see how it works out.

Since I am discouraging my son from watching TV, I have stopped watching TV too and that means I spend all the free time I can find to read books. I have been reading a lot from last one year, since that is the only entertainment I have these days. We did not go out much thanks to us falling sick multiple times and also the weather. But I am absolutely enjoying reading. I am not missing TV at all, which is weird as I was a movie addict sometime back. I no longer crave to watch new movies, nor am I excited about Netflix anymore. We listen to music, lots of it. My son loves Taylor Swift and starts dancing the minute I turn on her 1989 album.

I have always loved reading and collecting books. When I was a kid, I would cry when we passed bookshops and not toy shops. My tantrums would be about needing a new book and not a new dress or toy. I mostly read children magazines to begin with, as mom had subscribed to multiple magazines for my sake. I remember reading an article on Reader’s digest about eyes becoming lazy and people losing sight in one eye. I then tested my eyes using the test they had given only to find out I couldn’t see through one eye. We rushed to the doctor and discovered that I had power and needed glasses for one eye, which went undetected since I could read properly thanks to the other good eye. If not for that magazine, I don’t know if we would have ever discovered that.

We used to travel in the train a lot, since we lived in North India and our family was in South India. Many books that I own have been bought on railway stations and I would usually finish these books while on the train. I would also borrow a lot of books from the school library or the public library when I was young. Once I became an adult, I wanted to collect every good book in the world and went on a buying spree. Most of my money goes in buying books and very less is spent on clothes and cosmetics.

Like this comic strip says –

I have never been interested in fashion or dressing up. I remember how just before a final exam, I was busy revising lessons for the Nth time, when my roommate was busy applying cream after cream on her face. I kept wondering if boys would be busy answering questions in the exam or would have time to admire her beautiful face. 😛 Since baby arrived, I don’t have time to properly wash my face but I see a colleague (who also had a baby recently) all decked up, as if she were to enter Miss America contest. How does she make time for dressing up or for doing makeup? Probably she doesn’t read books and spends her free time on this. Anyway, that is something on my must-do list – learn how to do makeup. But I feel brains are more attractive compared to physical beauty, at least for me. I am more attracted to a person who can hold an intelligent conversation with me, rather than having a beautiful face to look at. And that makes me not so interested in buying great dresses or in doing makeup.

I have been blogging about books a lot these days for two reasons. One, because I am reading more books than I read in the last few years. Two, because I have no friend in real life with whom I can discuss about books. None of my friends read books. There are a few friends who read a book here and there, but are not serious readers. I had few friends who were serious readers, but they are in a different continent and I talk to them maybe once a year or less. With no friend to discuss books, I have resorted to Goodreads and Internet to find good books to read and my blog is the place where I blabber about the books that I read. I wish I could find a friend in real life who was as crazy about books as I am. Sigh! My only hope currently is my son. If he starts loving books like I do, then I will have a reader friend for life. 🙂