Watching TV with Melody

I love that my kids watch Doctor Who with me. I really do. But Melody has been driving me nuts lately in the following ways:

• She wants to know, from title sequence on, who everyone is, what is going to happen to them, if anyone will die and how it will end.

• Every time it is scary, she leaves the room, screaming, to hide. Then she shouts, "Can I come back yet? How about now?" until I give her the all-clear.

• If my laziness takes over and I tell her to come back too soon, she clings to my body, burying her head in whatever squishy part she can access at the moment.

• Once the scary part is over, she comes in upset that she missed what was happening and asks over and over again, "Where are they? Who is that guy? Where did Rose/Amelia Pond/Dr. Martha Jones/Donna Noble go?"

• She chooses pivotal moments in the episode to ask if this is reality or fantasy. Then she wants to know if the people exist but are just pretending to be someone else and if Time Lords really exist. If he is the last of the Time Lords, what happened to all the other Time Lords. Don't forget the theological discussion: if Doctor Who dies, does he go to heaven?

• Once the alien evil du jour is established, she must quantify exactly how scary the threat is. The Weeping Angels rank number one, followed by the Satan-like beast in the middle of the planet in the black hole. Daleks and Cybermen swap off third and fourth, depending on the particulars of that episode. Then the Slyvine. She's not sure what to think of the cat-nurses and is pretty sure the Face of Bo should be on the list. She loves anything involving the fat globules from Adipose industries or Cassandra, the trampoline-human.

In establishing today's ranking, I made the mistake of mentioning the episodes too scary for them to watch, which includes the original Weeping Angels episode and The Empty Child. Silly me. I was treated to a ten-minute interrogation of exactly how a child could be empty.

A lesser mother would stick to Max and Ruby.