Dear Noggin,

Thank you for putting Little Bear on at 4:00 pm each day. The theme music begins to play and it just makes me smile. I fetch my little one from wherever she is in the house and sit her down in front of the tv as the voices of Little Bear and Mother Bear and Cat and No Feet and all the others fill our home. I love Mother Bear. She is so sweet-- much sweeter than I am. She inspires me to always be so kind to my little bears, to speak softly and gently like she does. She is my hero.

Because of Little Bear being on at 4:00, I can freely go into the kitchen without guilt and work on dinner preparation. I am guaranteed that for that full 30 minutes, my 3yo will be absorbed in the adventures of Little Bear and I can chop and dice and saute to my hearts' content. I am sad when the music comes on at the end, because my time is up. Noggin, I confess I wish there were back to back episodes of Little Bear. Sometimes I need more than 30 minutes. Sometimes I am still cooking dinner.

I know there will come a day that no one watches Little Bear in our house anymore. That day is arriving faster and faster. I remember when my nearly 17 yo used to watch it years and years ago. Now he walks through the den and I point at the tv, "It's Little Bear!" I say. "Don't you remember?" He pats his little sister on the head absentmindedly and says something about her standing too close to the tv. Then he goes upstairs to his room to plan his life via cell phone from behind closed doors. For a moment, I wish that my little bear could have stayed little forever. But Noggin, that's just not going to happen, then or now.

Instead I choose to be grateful for Little Bear at 4:00, and for the chance to do it all again with this little one... and this time around, I am appreciating it so much more. So I wanted to take a moment to say thanks Noggin for your public service to moms everywhere.

Signed,