DVR Held Hostage

I'm one who tends to feel proud whenever my children acquire a new skill, master something they've never done.

Usually.

But I'm NOT proud of the fact that the three grade schoolers have learned how to program the DVR (for the uninitiated, that's a Digital Video Recorder, or TiVo-like recording device). Last year at this time, when you looked at the list of programs The Spouse and I had recorded and saved on the DVR -- before the kids learned how to work the DVR -- one would've found a variety of programming, mostly for grown-ups, with an occasional SpongeBob or Hannah Montana thrown into the mix.

No longer.

Just the other day, when The Spouse and I were scrolling through the list of recorded shows seeking the latest episode of Swingtown, I was stunned by just how many kids' shows and movies had been saved. So I decided to count them. Out of 25 TV programs and movies that are currently being saved on our DVR, only five of them were shows I'd recorded. Twenty of them were programs the kids had programmed. Here's the list (movies/shows I recorded are bolded and have an asterisk):

-- Minuteman (TV movie from Disney Channel)

-- Luck of the Irish (Disney Channel movie)

-- Max Keeble's Big Move (Disney movie)

-- Jump In! (Disney movie)

-- Camp Rock (Disney movie)

-- The TV Set (movie)*

-- The Wild (Disney movie)

-- Harry Potter & the Goblet of Fire (movie)

-- Hannah Montana (Disney TV show)

-- Army Wives (Lifetime TV show)*

-- Cory in the House (Disney TV show)

-- My Boys (TBS show)*

-- SpongeBob (Nickelodeon show)

-- Cory in the House (different episode)

-- The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (Disney show)

-- Mad Men (AMC show)*

-- Army Wives (different episode)*

-- Disney Channel Games (reality show)

-- Tom & Jerry

-- Phineas and Ferb (Disney show)

-- Kim Possible (Disney show)

-- Phineas and Ferb (different episode)

-- Tom & Jerry (different episode)

-- Kim Possible (different episode)

-- The Princess Diaries (Movie)

(Note: At one point last month I realized that The Girl had set the DVR to record every airing of Hannah Montana and all the memory in the DVR was being eaten up by the perky teen's sitcom, so I deleted most of the scheduled recordings, otherwise there'd be 15 different episodes on this list.)

A little bit of knowledge goes a long way.

Image credit: Disney Channel.