One thing I do to keep my sanity...

alternately titled: My kids don't die because...

I burn my DVDs.

That's right, if you open any kid-related DVD case on our shelf, you'll find my kid-like friendly writing staring back at you.

I've found it basically impossible to keep Easton from touching the DVDs and since I like to pretend that I am smarter than him, I decided to see what I could do about it.

I found a program online (www.dvdfab.com) that does the conversion/compression stuff for you.  When I first found it, you could do everything you needed to do with their free trial, and it was awesome.  Then, they up and got smarter than me and now you do have to pay for the service.  But really? $25 a year is worth it to save hundreds of dollars in DVDs.  After you have that program, you just need to have a DVD-burning capable computer and DVD-burning software (we have Nero).

And then, WAH-LAH!  Kid-proof DVDs.  It will make you sleep easier at night, I promise.

Notes:
*In the DVDFab program you have the option of burning the entire disc or just the main movie.  I recommend burning just the main movie.  Not only does your kid not really care about all of those extra features, but if you do just put the main movie on the DVD, you don't have to wait around to press the play button, the DVD just starts playing.  It is the greatest thing ever.
*If you remember, unselect the subtitles option when you burn your DVDs.  For whatever reason, the default on the burned DVDs is to have the subtitles on the screen and while Easton doesn't seem to care, it drives me batty if I ever sit down to watch a movie with him. [you can turn them off, but the default is that they are there].
*Because I only burn DVDs that I own and I only burn one copy at a time [if one has worn out (ahem, Incredibles) I break the unusable kid DVD in half and burn a new kid copy] this is legal.