It just fucking figures, I finally bought a DVD player and a thingie from Radio Shack into which I plugged all of our widgets, so now we (if we had a working TV) could easily & conveniently alternate between VHS, DVD, cable, etc.
But it doesn’t fucking matter, b/c my 15-month-old, 25-lb baby BROKE the damn thing! That child just HAS to push all the buttons!! I caught her doing it & turned the power strip off, but apparently not before she’d played enough to break it.
Now when I turn it on, all I get is a grey screen w/horizontal stripes. And that only lasts about a second before it flashes white & turns itself off.
She and her twin brother have been alternating time-outs in the “naughty playpen” this week, courtesy of the nanny shows. They think its a hoot & will deliberately touch a forbidden object in order to gain admission.
Lately they’ve been climbing their way to the top of the kitchen table, where they do their “Happy Feet” dance. Never mind the $65 I spent buying them a legitimate slide/climber toy, under which the cat is now hiding. Noooo! They’d much rather climb on the kitchen chairs, the computer desk, and the end table upon which sits the ONE LOUSY LAMP we’ve still got for the whole fricking living room!
It’s a good thing they’re so cute & give wet sloppy kisses & big hugs & giggle all the way down to their corn niblet toes.
Maybe it’s time to try a different form of discipline for them, then?
IANAP, but I always figure when the kids are laughing at the punishment, it ain’t doin’ much good.
(Of course, that’s when I get in trouble with MY friends who are parents - I laugh at their child laughing at their punishment…could be why I haven’t been invited over recently ).
I might look into seeing if the warranty on your television covers what happened. Surely even pounding on the buttons shouldn’t cause the problems you describe. That’s a problem with the picture tube itself if I’m not much mistaken. (Which I could be, at least partially.) How old is the set? I’d either see if I could get it repaired at a reduced cost, or replaced. I’m not sure I’d describe all the details of what happened, lest they “blow me off” and try to blame me anyway and not compensate me for what really should be their problem to fix. Do you know any repair people who might be able to tell you if what you saw the baby doing would cause such problems? It’s worth maybe checking into. Good luck.
[SUB]Also, please, please be very sure that you have that heavy monster SECURELY seated on it’s stand, which is fastened into the wall. One horrible way toddlers can die in the home is by tipping heavy appliances like the TV over on top of them.[/SUB]
Maybe they pushed the ‘input’ button? And it’s set to the wrong channel, like an Svideo or something. Try turning it on and pushing either the input or channel up button.
But I doubt they did anything that could actually break it, short of throwing up inside it. Button pushing can not break a TV. If it’s broke, take it back.
I think that what she did was turn it on and off rapidly. She just loves little buttons! It’s a 9-yr-old set, so I’m sure it’s completely out of warranty.
The feedback here is cracking me up (some of it intentionally). Before I had kids, I would likely have thought some of the same things. But now that I know better? Pfffft! 15-month-olds can’t reason. They don’t even have much of a vocabulary (Mom, Dad, cat), although their receptive language is way ahead of spoken.
We’re working on teaching the concept of “No!”, but it’s very slow going. Their memory concerning misdeeds is pretty brief, no more than a few minutes. And until recently I had the room so babyproofed that they couldn’t get into trouble. Which is itself a mistake - it’s important for them to begin to learn some “No’s”, and that’s what we’re working on. It’s just very a tedious business, requiring massive repetition. It’s just very a tedious business, requiring massive repetition. It’s just very a tedious business, requiring massive repetition. It’s just very a tedious business, requiring massive repetition. It’s just very a tedious business, requiring massive repetition.
The other day we were outside and my son got a little too far ahead of me & I shouted “Stop!” and he did! So we are making some progress!
My nephew, who is now 4, has broken at LEAST 4 different VCRs and countless other stuff. He is obsessed with things with buttons, and openings, and moving parts. Good luck with that.
It’s never too young to beat the child. In fact, according to one of them popular “Christian” (scare-quotes used to note the fact that this behavior is anything but) child-rearing manuals, this is just about the correct age to start using corporal punishment.
Anyway, this is why I only intend to have cats. They break things on occasion, but they just don’t have the anatomical wherewithal to wreck a TV set.
Frankly, to me they’re a hell of a lot cuter than human young. I seem to find baby animals just adorable except of my own species. I just am missing whatever gene confers affection towards human young.
I can do a kick-ass impression of that. I’ve had people in hysterics after it, and they weren’t even drunk.
I can do a great Nancy Kerrigan, too.
And Excalibre, I’m kind of with you. I love kids and want my own, but we have a hard time thinking anyone else’s kids are cuter than our cats - we pretty much think anything they do is hilarious and adorable. Sadly, our boy cat is extremely badly-behaved and does whatever he wants. But it ain’t from wont-of-trying. He doesn’t listen. We’re thinking about a kitty psychiatrist.
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