The other babysitter

I have come to realize that the person who first came up with Saturday morning cartoons was undoubtedly a genius.

Or he or she was a parent, who like me, don't want to get up at 6:45 a.m. on one of the few mornings when I don't have to get up that early.

I have never been a morning person. I always have been a night owl.

Yet, somehow, that hormonal magic worked during the early years of motherhood that I suddenly found the ability to wake up from a dead sleep to full alertness in 30 seconds flat when my son woke up in the wee hours of the morning. I managed to get up and get moving and do whatever I needed to do to comfort him and tend to his needs, somehow overcoming my own natural inertia and sluggishness.

5 years into motherhood, I guess the chemicals have worn off because I have become a slug again. This becomes a problem when your child, so rigidly set on his school schedule, gets up at normal time.

Then you wake up to a 35-pound weight on your back, shouting, "It's time to get up. Wake up now."

And that's when TV becomes that invaluable tool for the working parent.

Now, I've never been a huge fan of using television as a babysitter. We have always regulated my son's TV watching habits, setting up time limits and only allowing certain shows and videos. I try to make sure that of my son's play options, that TV or computer time is one of the last things he does.

But my weekend mornings have reverted back to sacred rest time and I thank whomever it is that decided to pile the kid's shows onto the Saturday morning TV schedule.