I have a daughter. She's two, she's a toddler, and she has no attentionspan. One moment she'll be playing with the giant Legos, the next will seeher scattering playing cards across the living room floor, and the momentafter that the cats are running for their lives. The only things thatcapture her attention for more than a minute or two are videos and DVDs.Studies that tell me to turn off the television bounce of me like bulletsoff Superman. She loves them, they keep her mostly in one room, and herteachers in daycare talk about how smart she is every day. It's not on allthe time, but when the box goes dark, it's only a matter of time until acatstarts yowling in fear or toys start bouncing down the stairs in a colorfulplastic waterfall.

She's gotten to the point where she can pick what she wants to watch. Shecan't read, but she knows exactly which tape or DVD goes in which box. Hertastes vary over time, so I have seen the rise and fall of Elmo, the briefreign of Pooh, the Wiggles interregnum, and the slow but steady growth inpopularity of Blue's Clues. "Blue's Clues" is beyond her at this point, sowhen she hands me the DVD, it's always with the Zen admonition, "Pay BoozeCooze, daddy. Pay Booze Cooze." My incessant giggling at this pointdoesn'tbother her, but it does annoy her mother a great deal.

Toddlers are also creatures of habit, which in the end is perhaps the onlything that saves a parent from going off the deep end. One nice thingabouthaving a two-foot destruction machine in your house is that, come 7:30, itexpects a bath, a cuddle and a bed, more or less. And as my toddler getsolder, it's always more. For the past couple of months, that means thateach night, between the end of bath and the putting-on of pajamas, she getsto run down the hall shrieking in delight, damp towel trailing behind, tosit in my lap at the computer desk and listen to and watch the new They Might be Giants album, No! . She wrapsherself in the towel, leans her dripping head back against my shoulder andpicks the first track of the evening. "Wobot Parade, daddy. Pay Wobotpawade."

Once of the first things I ever bought for her was the Talking Head's "Stop MakingSense" DVD, because I saw it on an Amazon.com list called "Videos thatyour child will love that you can stomach." No! deserves a place onthat list, one near the very top. She and I have watched or listened topart of that album almost every night since it arrived. The CD isenhanced,so a majority of the songs come with interactive Flash animation that akid,or parent in my case, can click on while the music plays on the computer.The animations are what we watch each night before bedtime, and my onlycomplaint is that they don't do enough. Each has two or three variations,and they aged quickly for me. The daughter has no such problem, and theyare for her after all.