Basketball on TV!

My child is obsessed with basketball.

I know all you parents are now saying, “MY child is obsessed with balls too!” or “MY child is obsessed with dolls” or “when MY child was two, he was obsessed with cars.” I don’t disagree with you. I think obsession and toddlers come hand in hand. And it’s not uncommon to see one of these little people permanently attached to one particular item.

But, I insist, my child is OBSESSED.

And now you parents are rolling your eyes, “oh, one of those. Those parents whose child walked earlier, talked sooner, ate more, even is more obsessed.”

But no, I do insist! He truly is. His grandparents have seen nothing of the sort. None of his aunts or uncles or cousins in our very extended families have seen anything of the sort. His daycare provider has never seen anything of the sort (she’s been in business 23 years). His pediatrician has never seen anything of the sort (he’s been in business 39 years), or the nurse practitioner (42 years). Believe me when I tell you, my child is obsessed.

Every day he demands to go to the “basketball hoop.” It must be a full size hoop, with the full court, and big kids (and by big kids, I mean grown-ups, or at very least, teenagers…he seems to know anyone younger isn’t worth their salt). He thinks, however, he should be allowed to join in the big kids’ games. Because clearly, he is good enough. So far we have convinced kept him from jumping in, but only just barely.

If it’s raining outside and we tell him he can’t go to the park (he adamantly insists anyway, and would honestly, really, truly have no problem playing in the park in the rain for hours) if we are actually able to convince him that the park isn’t a possibility, he then demands “basketball on TV.” I would like to take this moment to say I am not a parent who lets her child watch TV, I just don’t do it. In fact, we don’t even have cable, it’s not like TV is something he does on a regular basis. But we did watch March Madness games at a friend’s house and on our computer…you can guess what he asks once he’s told there is no basketball on TV. He actually pulled my laptop out of the bag and dragged it over to me while I was cooking dinner, “Momma, basketball.” (You’ll be happy to know the laptop does in fact still work.)

If by chance we have something else on TV (such as a movie Mommy and Daddy were hoping to watch since it’s almost his bedtime and he seemed to be playing SOO nicely by himself, or maybe the documentary Daddy has been wanting to watch and Mommy allows during the day because it’s educational, or even, somehow or other, cartoons…) he will turn it off and steal the remote, threatening us. “It’s basketball or nothing, people. You comply or I’ll hit the TV. Really hard. And then cry. But it won’t make me forget about basketball on TV, so don’t even think about it.” What kid doesn’t want to watch cartoons? What kid would rather have NO tv if not basketball?

Or if there’s something on the computer screen (such as, say, my work) he will commandeer the mouse and begin clicking ad nauseam, sure that eventually, he WILL find basketball. It is in there somewhere, he KNOWS it is. You cannot fool him, he is smarter than you think! And sadly…he’s probably right.