Ninja Warrior!

.g4tv.com/ninjawarrior

If you have the channel G4 (and if you don't, you need to get it), you need to tune into Ninja Warrior at 6pm and 10pm weeknights. Blessed mother of all that is crazy, this show rocks. It is a Japanese show wherein people compete to be the Ninja Warrior Grand Champion. The competition takes the form of absolutely unbelievable feats of physical strength, agility and stamina that will leave you agape. I'm talking about challenges like the "salmon ladder" where the contestant hangs on a pull-up bar, and has to swing to move the bar up a foot onto higher notches. The seventh notch is about a foot and a half higher than the sixth. Followed immediately by about five other equally demanding challenges. How anyone does it is beyond me. I think it's best suited to gymnasts, triathletes, and other muscularly rock-solid but not-necessarily-huge individuals.

The most fun part of Ninja Warrior is that when I say, "Wow. You have to be so strong to do that!" or "I could never do that. Wow," Bambina says, "I can do it!" So we have set up our own Ninja Warrior assault course in her bedroom. (Please don't call DSS on me; I swear she's safe at all times). :) I put her fitted bottom sheet on one half of the bed, and she pulls herself up onto the bed using only the sheet, thereby conquering Green Bed Mountain. Then she dives into Marshmallow Lake (we put her down comforter in a big pile on the bed), after which she must go down the Stairs of Doom (her two-step booster for getting into bed) or descend the Stool of Knowledge (another booster) to the Monkey Board of Mystery (that little balancing skateboard-shaped toy she loves). When she ascends them all, we pronounce her Grand Champion and then I use a pencil as a microphone to interview her about her victory. It is seriously the most fun I have had based on a TV show in a long time. Although, since she just saw one guy fall from The Curtain Swing into the water below, she now thinks it's funnier to fall in and pretend to be toweling off as she says into the pencil: "I will practice harder and come back again!!"

Bottom Line: You will love this show, even if you don't have a preschooler.