I don't believe all children's television is bad.
I don't think that watching Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer or This is Daniel Cook is a passive way to keep Franklin occupied while I smoke crack in the kitchen. I find it amusing when people tell me with such pride that their child doesn't know who Steve is, or the Wiggles, or Sniper the Fox. These shows aren't the crap we watched when we were kids, man. It's really quite cool.

We participate with Franklin while we watch. We point out the clues to Joe, tell Swiper not to swipe, help Boots can pick the right path, and break dance with Daniel.

In terms of Blues Clues, we all miss Steve. Don't get me wrong, Joe's great and his drag queen rendition of Little Red Riding Hood was a classic. I especially love the fact that he changes his clothes.
Nevertheless, there was something about Steve that made you feel like you were in on the joke - that he knew that you knew, that the world is nuts but it's all okay for the next little while as we tried to figure out was the hell Blue's trying to say.
Steve also had a tendency to where the same green striped shirt every day.

Every day, the same striped shirt.
If it was cold, he had a green striped hat, scarf and mittens. When it finally came time to pack up for "college", his suitcase was full of the same green striped shirt.

Franklin loves the striped shirt. It is a bit of a challenge to convince him to take off anything striped he might be wearing - pajamas, t-shirts, pants, even his socks. They don't have to be green, just striped - "like Steve".

Fortunately, there is a large variety of striped children's wear available and we have taken advantage of every value village stripe in his size.
Every Stripe.
If you live in this city, have a 2 year old and you are looking for stripes in children's consignment stores, I apologize. I'm just trying to get my kid to wear clean clothes everyday.

The only thing is The Stripes Don't Match - yes, here is the anal retentive, Martha Stewart side of me that only my mother knew existed.
Nevermind don't match! Who wears stripes and stripes together! - even if they did match!

It seems Franklin has reached that age when he wants to read his own stories and choose his own clothes and although I don't mind skipping pages and making up new dialogue, I seem to have an odd hang up about my son looking like a circus clown.

Yes, I know, I gotta get over this.