"C" is for cookie!

The folks at Sesame Street are making some major changes in their program. Due to the recent, alarming statistics on childhood obesity, Cookie Monster will be toning down his cookie consumption by eating healthier cookies and fewer of them. He even has a new song called "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food", teaching kids that cookies are not meant to be eaten all the time.

Just in case the Sesame Street people don't realize this, I already teach my kids about good nutrition. After all, that is my job as a parent, right? They may also be surprised to find out that in spite of the fact that my older daughters (ages 16 and 14) watched their show for years, neither one of them have adopted Cookie Monster's eating habits. They also haven't taken to living in a trash can like Oscar the Grouch and they aren't just-plain-irritating like Elmo! (Luckily, my youngest daughter is too young to read because she would be horrified to know I wrote that!)

Honestly, I think Sesame Street is a decent show. But I also think that the producers of the show take themselves a wee bit too seriously. The more the program strays from its original purpose of teaching numbers, letters and colors to children in a fun and entertaining way, the more it becomes like many of the other kid's shows on television: junk.

If they want my opinion (they don't), I would suggest that they stick to the basics. They are good at it. There is hardly an American child who starts kindergarten without knowing that "C is for cookie!" And that's good enough for me.