Guys, Is It A Party Upstairs ?

While finishing dinner at the table this evening with my beautiful wife Karen, our youngest daughter Myra was watching some show on Karen's iPad.  She was mesmerized with the show.  So we decided to conduct an experiment.

I offered her some candy.  I offered to take her to the store.  I asked her if she wanted to go get ice cream.  I told her I was going to have to throw away all her toys.  I made up a short story about an elephant trying to teach a monkey to fly.

No reaction from her whatsoever.

Then Catalina came upstairs to get a drink of water.  She saw Myra watching a show on the iPad and stopped next to her for a minute.  Then two minutes.  Then five minutes.  And then ten minutes had passed.  She got caught in the same gravitational pull of Netflix (I think that's what they were watching).

So I conducted the same experiment with her as I had with Myra.  Not so oddly, the results were exactly the same.  I even offered her money and to go bowling (which is something she always asks to do).

Nothing!

Another 5 minutes passed and then her older brother Ben and older sister Brooklyn came up the stairs.  They both eventually made their way to the iPad and got sucked into the same black hole.  After another minute, Cat was finally able to step away from the screen.  I pulled her in for a hug and told her all the "offers" I had made to get her away from the screen.  The shocked look on her face was priceless.

And then, as she headed downstairs to watch a movie, she shouted back toward her brother and sisters (who were still huddled around the iPad) ... "Guys!  Is it a party upstairs?!" ... like she hadn't just been captivated for half an hour!

Karen and I did not stop laughing for a long, long time!

Song Of The Day:
The words of the song might not be related to the post, but "Look Away" by Chicago came to mind as I struggled to get ANY of my children to look away from the iPad.  It's a great song regardless of the seemingly random use in this post!

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