evil, wonderful TV

This has been a big week for Olivia -- big because I've allowed her to watch more television than she's probably seen in her entire lifetime thus far.

I went to bed "early" (10:30 p.m.) Monday night with a headache and feeling strangely exhausted. Sometime around 3 a.m. I woke up and noticed that I had a stabbing headache -- the kind where it hurts to move your eyes in any direction and like a small ice pick may have somehow become lodged in your forehead. Tuesday morning brought more of the same, with bonus nausea, sweating and dizziness. I hadn't felt this bad with both pregnancies combined. Something was seriously amiss.

The morning routine of changing O's diaper, carrying her downstairs and putting her in her high chair felt like Herculean tasks. Her breakfast yogurt was overly fragrant and caused me to cover my neck in cold, wet paper towels in the hopes of taming some of the nausea. The normally adorable sounds of her beating on her high chair tray and jibber-jabbering endlessly were causing my brain to ache and my vision to blur. She just wouldn't stop talking, and she doesn't just talk to herself. She says one word over and over, at increasing volume, until you repeat back the word she's saying. I wasn't up for it that morning.

Enter TV. Normally I save it for emergencies, particularly fussy/restless days, or for when I need to clip her nails without hysterics. The Baby Signing Time series absolutely mesmerizes her, and she does learn from it. But lately, we (read: me) have become reeeeeeally tired of the songs, as well as of Miss O's insistence that we play the songs in the car (which she "suggests" with loud shrieks of "Baby? Baby! Baby! BABY! BAY-BEEEEEEE!" over and over and over until we comply). So over the last week or so, I've been trying to wean her from the DVDs so that we don't lose our sanity during an upcoming road trip.

But on this day, I broke into the arsenal. I didn't feel well enough to care. All four DVDs of Baby Signing Time were played. Several episodes of Jack's Big Music Show were screened for her viewing pleasure as well. During this time, I was horizontal on the couch, moaning and watching my temperature creep up into the 100s. My mom came by with Sprite and McDonald's biscuits, and Olivia barely acknowledged her presence. She was in the zone.

I just hope she didn't lose too many IQ points during her day with the evil, wonderful television.