At the Movies

(Dips toe back in blogging waters and the recording of moments from my only child's life. How long have I been gone? 3 months? No, almost 4. Geesh.)

Last summer Zeke saw his first movie on DVD, having gone two years without being exposed to the medium. I think it was part of the whole "we are going to be our super protective of our offspring/future caregiver and never let him watch anything more than half an hour of Sesame Street" parenting approach. But now, a year passes and I think my stars every day for PBS Kids babysitting Zeke long enough to get a shower and catch up on emails. Zeke gets exposed to media pretty often. He likes watching movies at home and is able to focus for 90 minutes on a moving image like you wouldn't believe. Every morning he wakes up and begs me to watch a movie on DVD. His favorite movie these days is Toy Story. He sometimes sleeps with a Buzz Lightyear or a Woody that we have had for years. Sometimes he likes to carry around or nap with DVD cases.

So, in May we decided to take the show on the road, or rather hit the road and see a show. (We did try to take him to an IMAX movie at some point last year, but left a few minutes in when it was clear he wanted to talk LOUDLY during the film.) We took Zeke to a nearly empty matinee of earth. Zeke enjoyed the movie experience, though got a little restless at the end. He spent the time naming different animals in the movie and narrating what was going on with those animals. 

He really surprised us at one point, though. The movie features a lot of prey vs predator scenes, though always cuts away at the critical moment and switches to another vignette. So, you could hypothetically look at a scene and say, "Oh, how sweet. The cheetah is playing with the baby antelope. Aww, now they're hugging and the cheetah is kissing him on the neck." You're not likely to do that, but maybe if you are 3 and have no awareness of death and killing. During what was a really uncomfortable scene for me, a pride of hungry lions stalk and attack an elephant who has been weakened by exhaustion and thirst. The lions jump on the elephant's back and then the scene changes. What does Zeke make of this? He says, "Oh, he dies. The elephant dies." We were really not expecting that. 

Then this weekend we took Zeke to the opening of Up. Originally we thought we might get a sitter and leave Zeke at home like we did for WALL-E and Ratatouille -- we don't miss Pixar films -- but that did seem a little silly to pay for someone to watch our child when we go see a family movie. Zeke had a great time and was not restless at all, even keeping his 3-D glasses on for more than two-thirds of the movie. As the credits rolled -- Aaron does have him trained to watch credits -- Zeke pronounced to the people his review: "THE END! That was a good movie. I had a great time. Thank you for taking me to the movie." Sometimes I love him enough to forget how "three" he has been for the past month!

Sidenote: Like a lot of people, my favorite part of the movie was Dug, a talking dog. I'm contemplating getting a plush toy to satisfy my own kiddish needs. While trying to figure out where to get one (they haven't been distributed widely yet), I saw this shirt at the Disney Store website. Yes, the most enjoyable line of the film is probably when Dug says "I have just met you and I love you." It seems a little icky, though, when you put it on a shirt for a grown woman.