My wife warned me that I shouldn’t meddle with the balance of nature.

We’ve always had two TVs in our house.

One big one in the living room.

One small one in the parents’ bedroom.

We don’t use the small one very often, but we do turn it on once per night when our youngest daughter goes to sleep. She shares our bedroom with us, and so every night about 8:30, we put her down in her crib and play one of her videos on the TV. Currently showing: Max and Ruby.

All was well in the Baker household until I got an idea in my head.

This past weekend, my three-year-old son Andy kept saying, "I wanna play game, Daddy, wanna play game."

He doesn’t know the name of the game he wanted to play, but I could tell he wanted to play Spyro the Dragon – a video game that we own.

And so, just like that, this idea popped into my head – It occurred to me that I could just temporarily move the TV from our room to the kids’ room and hook it up to the video game.

The six-year-old and three-year-old were both absolutely thrilled to see the TV moved into their room!

My son, especially, was absolutely stunned.

"How did you do that, Daddy? Andy asked.

I’m thinking that in Andy’s mind, a TV is a permanent fixture of epic proportions – like a tree, or front door, or fireplace. I don’t think it ever occurred to him that a TV could be picked up and moved. After all, the two that we own have always been in the same places ever since he was born, so he really had no reason to think they could be moved.

But boy was he happy to find out they could!

All was hunky dory and dad was the great "hero" until…it was time to move the TV out of their room. It was time for Ada to go night-night and watch Max and Ruby.

I didn’t think this would be a big deal, but when I unplugged the TV set and picked it up to carry it out of their room, there was much acrimony, tears and discord. There was the proverbial wailing and gnashing of teeth.

"It’s not fair!" my oldest daughter protested. "Why does Ada get a TV and we don’t?"

The protests and great sadness continued, and the children’s mother looked at me and said, "Way to go, Dad."

Yesterday, we reached a solution, of sorts, but I’m not so sure it’s a good one.

I had a secret that the kids didn’t know about.

I knew there was a 13-inch Sony TV sitting out in our garage.

It’s been there for years. I’ve had this TV ever since my freshman year in college back in 1984.

Would it work?

Only one way to find out.

I brought the TV in from the garage and cleaned off the years of dust and dirt dobber nests. I plugged it in, hooked it up to the video game, and sure enough, it worked. I guess it’s true – they really don’t make ‘em like they used to.

And so now we have three TVs in our little house and peace and justice and fairness have returned to the Baker household – at least in the eyes of the younger family members.

I’m not so sure increasing the number of TVs in out house by 50 percent is such a good thing, though. I can foresee dark days ahead as the children work it out amongst themselves what program or game will be on the TV that now sits in their room.

If problems develop down the road, at least I know I’ll have one option at my disposal – the knowledge that this TV is indeed portable, and that it can be carried back out to the garage just as easy as it was brought in.