For the love of Elmo

It all started with a DVD.  A DVD that we inherited from Hubby T's cousin which has a picture of Elmo on the front.  We have never watched this video but last spring Baby B would "play" with his movies by bringing them over to me one by one and I would say, "Look, it's your Elmo movie!"  And that's how he learned who Elmo is.  Way to go Mama P for not even realizing what you were getting yourself into... 

Then came the Elmo iPad app.  Hubby T found this one and it was Baby B's biggest treat while we were traveling to Colorado in the summer.  He's only able to do a couple of the games that the app offers to help teach kids their letters, but he's sure trying. 

After that came the "Where's Elmo's Blanket?" book.  Five pages and 30 some tabs later, "Elmo will never lose his blanket again!"  I don't know what it is about tabs, but they are Baby B's favorite right now.  A thousand bonus points to Mom-Mom for finding this one:)

And then sometime after that we started showing him Elmo videos on YouTube.  I'm not sure why we did this, considering how anti-screen time I've been with him.  It was definitely a turning point...as in, there's no turning back from our child's love of Elmo now.  Instead of Old McDonald (remember earlier this summer when all he would sing was e-i-e-i-e-i?) Baby B's new favorite song is "Elmo's Song!" which he asks to hear a gazillion times each day.  We watch Elmo with the ducks, Elmo singing the alphabet with India Arie, Elmo singing with Adam Sandler...Baby B would probably sit in front of the computer all day if we let him.  Thanks to Auntie A, we now have an Elmo doll that stays in his crib to cuddle with when he sleeps and we have an Elmo plate that has to be used for every single meal.  There is even an Elmo coloring book from the $1 section of Target that is sitting in my closet for his Christmas stocking.  (Yes, I'm already thinking about Christmas...I know, crazy.)  How did we get to this point?!

I am definitely not a parent who wants to cut my child off from popular culture, but it has surprised me how quickly he picked up on it and how quickly we gave into this new obsession.  Elmo is not all bad, so we'll keep being vigilant about what ways and in what quantities he consumes this silly red puppet monster.  In the meantime, if you have any recommendations of how to get "Elmo's Song" out of my head, I would greatly appreciate hearing them!