Leaving Sesame Street

One of my fondest memories growing up was watching Sesame Street every morning as a preschooler.  I can remember loving Grover (he’s still my fav) and I’d dream about one day visiting Sesame Street.  I wanted to see Hooper’s Store!  I wanted to sit on those brownstone steps and sing a song.  I wanted to see Ernie’s rubber duckie!

So it’s been a blast reliving all those fun memories with my two kiddies.  Sesame Street was the first television show I’d allow my children to watch when they turned two.  We even saw Sesame Street Live! when it came to our city.  Annabel loved Abby Cadabby and Daniel thought The Count was super cool.

But I haven’t seen an episode of Sesame Street in over 6 months.  My kids don’t care about it anymore.

I understand that Daniel has outgrown the show.  He only watched it a few times over the last year because Annabel still enjoyed it.  I was so excited to tape the new 2011/12 season so Annabel and I could watch it together when she didn’t have school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  But the conversations always went like this:

“Annabel, you wanna watch Sesame Street?”

“No.  Dora!”

“But it’s a brand new episode!  One you’ve never seen!”

“No.  That’s okay. I want to watch Dora!”

“Oh, look.  This one has John Krasinski in it.  I know you don’t know him, but he’s super funny!  PLEASE can we watch it?”

“Mama!  No!  Dora!”

“Okay.  Fine.”

I guess I was the one who couldn’t quite let it go.  I didn’t want to say goodbye to my ol’ buddy Grover or to Big Bird or to Maria and Luis and Gordon and Chris.  I wanted to see another letter and number of the day.

One night last week, after everyone was in bed and fast asleep, I was downstairs alone and catching up on some reality television shows on my DVR.  And I swear I almost pressed down and watched one of those brand new Sesame Street episodes.  By myself.  In the dark.  But I didn’t.  That would be sad.

It IS sad.

See ya, Sesame Street.  Hopefully I’ll visit you again one day.  Keep the air sweet, won’t ya?


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