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We have broken the seal. What's your policy? If you don't have one yet, do you plan to?

1- portable DVD players are a blessed blessed invention, for the parents of small children. i just got back from a 2-week road trip with a 3 year old. equal in greatness are head-phones. i didn't have to hear sheryl crow singing about slowing down and going too fast fast fast, or rascal flatts singing about life being a highway (again). i DID hear child laughing sweetly to himself, and MY CD's (and NPR when my sirius radio allowed it)

however, we never made it through a whole movie before child lost interest in that too. eh.

2- said child has already watched the simpson's movie with us. kinda. short attention span issue again. he prefers annoying us while we are trying to watch something. that ALWAYS holds his attention.

We do watch Futurama together, although many of the jokes are lost on him. he just loves the "spacey-ness" about it. you know, robots, aliens, spaceships. i wonder where he gets it?

Sweet, sweet season 4! Excellent choice. And God bless the person who invented the portable dvd player.

Just this week I introduced my 4-year-old to the Simpsons a little ahead of schedule. We were kicking back in our motel room after a day at the beach, flipping the channels for something preschooly.

"Summer of 4 ft. 2" was just starting (where they go to the beach and Lisa befriends the cool kids). It's a pretty clean one ("American Breast Enthusiast" notwithstanding) and one of my all-time favorites. And we were AT the beach! So I decided it was okay.

Much of it was over his head, but he loved Homer. The firecracker-in-the-dishwasher scene was a huge hit. Millhouse mistaking a horseshoe crab went over well. The car decorated with seashells just about blew his mind. But Marge's about-face with the marshmallow sqaures and Tang got the biggest laugh.

I'm going to wait until he's got a stronger sense of irony before showing him any more episodes, though.

Big O had the Simpsons from Day 1, she never had a chance. Hubby actually had to stop watching it with her around when she was 3, newly potty-trained, and in the bathroom. I hear a tiny voice, filled with frustration, yell out, "Where the hell's the toilet paper?" We don't curse around her, even minor words like that, so the Simpsons were blamed.

Now that she's older, he'll watch it occassionaly, but mostly the DVD sets are pulled out on trips for his own viewing. When she's a teenager they'll watch together and get all that sweet, sweet pap.

GirlWho is lukewarm on the Simpsons. She thinks Bart is funny, but she really just doesn't get the jokes. She does really like the movie, though.

My husband and his sister have let her watch Family Guy a number of times. I'm not Tipper Gore, but I had to draw the line at Family Guy. The school thinks we're weird enough - if she starts to trot out lines likes "damn you, Lois!" we'll be kicked out of the PTA for sure.

I love the portable DVD player. It also plays her god-forsaken Kidz Bop cds. We have the lengthy moving trip to Chicago less than a week away - I've already packed the player and DVDs in a bag for the trip.

She loves to play I Spy on the road, and frankly, I'd rather not. As a compromise, I found road trip bingo cards at Cracker Barrel. It's like I Spy, but instead of yelling out what you see, you cover the appropriate square for road signs, VW bugs, etc. I remember playing that on the summer pilgrimages to various and sundry historical sites that my grandparents called "vacations." Never take a 7 year old to Vicksburg, not if you actually like them.

HBD, we're the same way with the boys. N got to watch it from day one and then once he was old enough to repeat some of it, we had to stop. So A hasn't really ever seen more than one or two episodes. However, N is six now and he's allowed to watch sometimes, if we deem whichever episode on to be one of the okay for kids ones. Which is about 80% of the time.

Same as HBD. Our girls got them from time to time from day one. Soph called them "The Little Guys" once she started talking.

And yet she's never played a video game. I guess we're just backwards that way.

I think our plan is to avoid tv until he's old enough to come home and ask us, "What is this tv thing my friends speak of?" Right now he can only do two word sentences, so no worries yet. We're not big Simpsons fans here (sorry) so it's unlikely that will be a show we watch together. Come to think of it, I don't think I watch anything appropriate for small children. :)

I seem to recall someone mocking me for have a portable DVD player, Neal. I'm sure it had to be in jest.

We haven't started The Simpsons but it's only a matter of time. Season 4 is a great one.

When working at the movie theater we were asked how The Simpson Movie was. My friend said, "It's no Monorail but it's alright".

We just started our girlie on the Simpsons. I dont think at 1.5 years old she gets any of it but she likes it...and requests it all the time

Haven't shown the Bean any Simpsons--he's only a toddler and is only captivated by Curious George and Yo Gabba Gabba. But he knows Homer. There were a lot of billboards for the Simpsons Ride at Universal Studios (which, by the way, is awesome) and he often pointed out the window saying, "Look...it's Homer! It's Homer!"

Ahh. That's my boy.

I'm not showing my kids the Simpsons until they're old enough to really appreciate it. I'm afraid that the brilliance of it would be lost in the burt and fart jokes.

I want them to see it for the work of art that it is.

Yeah, um... I watched it while breastfeeding my 6-DAY-old... so, you know, she never had a chance.

She'll be growing up in a house surrounded by Simpsons memorabilia, with parents whose conversations are 32.79% recycled Simpsons quotes. [I counted once.]

I recall with great nostalgia being sent from the hospital room during our labor with the Button to purchase a portable DVD player and Season 6 (or so I believe--it was the one with Hurricane Neddy). There has been some discussion since then as to whether or not the show is suitable viewing for a now-2-year-old; we watch it with her and fast-forward through Itchy and Scratchy.

She can identify Homer and Mr. Burns, and when a sound bite plays from the show on my iPod while she's in the car, I either have to play it five more times or accept the screaming toddler in my back seat.

I know I'm a little late to the party here, but we were home with a feverish and cranky 16 month old last week, who, when the tv was on, would turn zombie like and tolerable, so yes....the tv babysitter was used on occasion...On one such occcasion, the Simpsons movie was on, and my cranky little child laughed out loud at parts like he understood the jokes....I would like to think it was the brilliance of the writing, but I'm guessing it was most likely delirium and motrin.....