If there is one thing Mr. Husband is guilty of doing, it's acting as a remote control for the pint-sized person. He will hunt down a program that she wants to watch pretty much all of the time. Hannah Montana? Sure. Mickey Mouse Clubhouse? Of course. High School Musical? He totally has a man-crush on Zac Efron.

There is an exception to his Remote Control impersonations--he will not appease the child during hockey or football. Ever. Fortunately for him, the kid bleeds black and gold and is perfectly happy watching her boyfriend Sidney Crosby skate around or her future father-in-law Troy Polamalou run down the field with his hair in tow. It never ceases to amaze me how well she adapts to the severe Pittsburgh Sports fever we have going on around here. She just gets it.

Today we spent the day wincing at the Steelers game and gutting some pumpkins. In most circles, that's what is called a Perfect Sunday. When the Steelers finally wrapped up the game and sent old man Favre back to his hidey hole, Mr. Husband grabbed the remote and began hunting for Kid-friendly TV. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's so nice. Anyway, he finally encountered what seemed to be a good program--a Halloween figure skating special.

As the witches and goblins spun through the air, Mr. Husband and I whispered to each other that the program was kinda lame. It had the makings of Most Excellent, but there just wasn't enough scary going on. (We don't do that Winnie the Pooh OoooOOooo Christmas thing. We want blood-sucking, carnage-filled BOO.) No matter, though, if Alexis wanted to watch it, fine. She had happily sat through about five hours of football. It was definitely her turn.

Alexis glanced up from her pumpkin gutting activities a few times, remarking about how she wanted ice skates, too. I took her ice skating once last winter, and she's mentioned that she wants to go back every single time ice has been on TV since then. The skaters made it through about two performances before Alexis let out a big sigh and said, "Turn it off. I want to watch football."

Damn I love that kid.

(For those of you keeping track, Christmas Crazy for Kids will get its start later in the week, no later than November 1.)