As Long As She Doesn't Ask To Peroxide Her Hair, I Claim No Harm Done.

One thing that has gone really well since my return to outside work is the significant drop in TV viewing hours in my girl's life. It wasn't overboard before but now it's severely restricted, well at least it is on weekdays. Weekends are mini-vacations from the rules (cut me some slack, I need to fulfill my inner lame anarchist) so the telly is on a bit longer but it's still less than before.

Since the reduction, our girl has learned to chose her shows wisely so it was a surprise when the expected background noise of Toopy and Binoo during the meal prep (her tv time) was replaced with something else. My daughter has fallen for a 'big kid' show and we have yet to find any reason to object to her requests.


No, no, Hannah Montana isn't back, that will happen over my dead body.

My 5yo girl loves Billy the Exterminator. Yeah, that's right, she loves watching this guy:

Billy is the one wearing sunglasses

For those not familiar with Billy. He kills pests of all kinds while wearing way too many spikes and lots of leather all-year-round in his homestate of Louisiana. With his somewhat tragic but intriguing hair (think Bret Michaels meets Limahl), he works with his equally strange-coiffed brother and parents in the extermination business. A business that has business logos and uniforms that make everyone -- even his mom -- look like Danzig fans. Sure beats The Duggers in my humble opinion. Anyway, as he explained in a recent episode (the one featuring an albino raccoon) the reason he wears leather and spikes all year round is for those times when his intended prey get the upper hand. Sounds reasonable though it still doesn't explain the hair.

Anyway. Billy strikes me as a pretty stand-up guy so we decided she could watch it. It's a science lesson for her - biology, zoology, entomology, and chemistry. Billy really knows his business and he does it as green and humane as possible. The inevitable swearing is all blanked out and I can't blame him for the occasional f-bombs, I can only imagine the profanities that would come out of my mouth if I ever pulled out a fridge with six-thousand cockroaches behind it. Trust me, it would make the hardiest of sailors blush like a school girl. My hatred of bugs is well documented on this blog and excuse me while a shiver goes up my spine.

So how do we feel about our daughter's viewing choice? The only downside so far has been those commercials for Intervention. Trust me: those commercials are totally not suitable for a 5yo unless you feel like opening the discussion about drug addiction to the kindergarten set. Not my cup of playdough thankyouverymuch. So far we've successfully made the grab of the remote to block out any potential hard-hitting questions but you just know she's going to pull out the 'what's meth?' question in front of my parents.

I figure as long as she doesn't ask us to peroxide her hair and wear it in a spiky mullet, no harm done.