Screen brain

''Posted on the Squeetus Blog March 13, 2006 01:45 PM PST. ''

It's been so fun to be home. Nothing like having to leave your kid for six days to make you appreciate every moment. Max is so fun! He loves playing hide-and-go-seek lately. We can play for up to an hour. He'll hide in the closet while I count to five, then he'll come and  look for me or his papa. When he finds us, he squeals and runs back to the closet while emphatically doing the sign for "again! again!"

I've noticed something curious about him lately. Max usually knows his limits. He knows when he's done eating, when he's tired and needs to go to sleep, when he's bored of a toy or a place and needs to find something new to do. But he doesn't know when he's sick of playing computer or watching TV.

At home he gets to watch TV for half an hour each day, but while we were traveling, we let him watch entire movies to keep him content. After awhile, he'd start to squirm, get cranky, throw a tantrum, but when I asked if he was all done watching TV, he'd insist he wasn't. Same when he's playing a computer game. After awhile, he's clearly done, but he doesn't know it. I wonder what it is about these "screen" activities that turn off the part of our brain that let's us know we've had it. I remember times (before I was a mom) I'd watch TV until 2 or 3 in the morning. Dean told me of a couple of times he played some mindless computer game until dawn during college. I guess adults can get screen-addled, too.

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