Where I recall watching a movie with my son

In my last post my friend Lisa, from libelletage mentioned how it’s great to look back at parenting posts to remember just what kids were like. I smiled when I read the comment, and started thinking of my favorite memories of my kids. And I realized that there’s one that I haven’t shared here. But I need to.

We can argue nature versus nurture for what kids grow to love when they’re kids — there’s certainly a tremendous amount of influence that we, as parents, have over their children. But, I think some loves just are born, intrinsically . . . with an adopted child, well, we don’t have a lot of input into what the birth parents enjoyed — but I was certainly happy the day that I started watching Star Wars on the TV & CJ sat down, transfixed.

The kid, simply is a Star Wars kid. Soon after I realized that I could use the movie as a babysitter to distract my young son while I dealt with my daughter, CJ started getting into Lego Star Wars on the Wii (which was awesome at first, because you just had to give him a Wiimote in control of a character that had a blaster & he was happy just shooting the blaster randomly . . . now, he actually plays the game, which is great & everything, but if he can’t get through a part, he’ll ask for help, meaning that I have to keep within hailing distance once I turn the game on).

Though I loved having a Star Wars kid, there are times that, simply, you have too much of a good thing in your life¹. And I couldn’t sit through another Star Wars movie. So I put in the Iron Giant.

CJ couldn’t have been much more than one at the time — he was walking, but absolutely not talking². Leila was very little, and I believe was napping through much of the movie (I ended up placing her in the pack & play more often than not because her “not entirely steady on his feet” brother couldn’t really be trusted to not trip over her if she was anywhere near him.

Throughout the movie, I was doing laundry, changing diapers . . . I may have napped for a little bit. CJ did the typical toddler thing, looking at the screen every now & then, but playing with toys, asking to be picked up, generally treating the movie as background noise.

Then the movie ended **spoiler alert for a movie that was released 15 years ago, but is entirely under-appreciated**. The Giant sacrificed himself, and the redeeming quality of the “jumpy” bolt that seemed to be screaming “it’s going to take awhile, but I’m putting myself back together,” would be lost on a one-year-old.

I questioned how much of the movie my son was picking up, but answered myself about 5 minutes later. He napped, then snacked, just before the movie, so it wasn’t “I’m sleepy,” and it wasn’t “I’m hungry,” but he started bawling. Uncontrollable crying. For 45 minutes.

He wasn’t hungry. He wasn’t sleepy. His diaper didn’t need to be changed. I’m convinced that he was crying for the giant.

So we watched Star Wars again to cheer him up.