So I’m watching MP and the Holy Grail with 10 year old Kizarvexilla, the apple of my eye and the kumquat of my spleen. Sir Robin approaches the Bridge of Death and breezes effortlessly through the first two questions. The Bridgekeeper, tiring of throwing softballs, zings the not-so-intrepid knight with “What…is the capital of Assyria?” Brave Sir Robin, forced to admit his ignorance, is hurled instantly into the Gorge of Eternal Peril.
Kizarvexilla turns to me in disgust. “It’s Nineveh. I mean, duh!”
I beam with pride whenever I tell the story of Junior telling me about one of his all-time favorite movies, Jurassic Park.
Us, outdoors, raking leaves in the fall. Junior is six.
Junior: I loved Jurassic Park. That was a good movie. Me: That’s rated G? Junior: Well, I’m not supposed to let Daddy know I watched it. Grandma and I watched it. It has my favorite dinosaur ever. What’s your favorite? Me: Stegosaurus. It’s deceptively mild-looking. Junior: Mine’s the velociraptor. I love the scene in the kitchen. I didn’t even get scared! Me: I got scared.
[Pause while we rake some more.]
Junior: Yeah, that’s a great movie, even though it’s not accurate. It’s called *Jurassic Park *and the velociraptors didn’t come around until the end of the Cretaceous period. Me:…
I don’t have kids, but…
This weekend, a long time friend, and his 2 sons, stayed with us. They are 3 and 8.
Saturday, we were all at a surprise birthday party for another friend. About 25 people wandering around the house, eating and chatting. The 2 boys were in the kitchen, into the Doritos.
Youngest wanders out into the living room, sees me, comes up and gives me a great big hug. Aahhh. That’s so sweet. You could just hear everyone in the room thinking that.
Until he runs off, I look down, and discover 2 Dorito-cheese orange handprints on the front of my sweater. The little snot wiped his hands on me! That was SO his dad, 20 years ago.
IANAP, but on the bonus footage for the movie Clerks 2 Kevin Smith is talking to his daughter who has a small role in the film and asking her what she thinks about being in the movies, etc. They work their way around to the fact that they would both have made the movie for payment in ice cream and he looks at her and says, “You and me, we are exactly the same.” It was really cute.
My wife’s a Halloween freak. We have a different way of rating movies. The kids, from birth, have had easy access to prop catalogs with lots of things like bulk stage blood and body parts.
Last weekend ‘Addams Family Values’ was coming on. It starts with Uncle Fester howling at the moon. Buggly #1 anxiously starts saying “I don’t wanna watch this movie, it’s scary”. So we change the channel.
What’s funny is, while saying this, he’s furtively squeezing a pencil sharpener that’s skull shaped, and it’s eyes poke out when you squeeze it.
When my daughter was quite young, she wanted to know how the TV remote worked. So I told her about infrared light, and how it’s really light even if we can’t see it. Earlier (like weeks earlier) we’d played with light in a mirror, to see how it reflects. So my kid, not even in junior high yet, decided to test the infrared light…by bouncing the signal into a hand mirror! And yep, sure enough, it worked. Not only did she reason that light that WE couldn’t see was still subject to the other rules of light, she tested it to make sure her Dear Old Mom wasn’t just bullshitting her. Even though I wouldn’t on something like this.
Being somewhat exasperated with her 3 year old son’s habits, my sister once told him that she should start introducing him to people as (first name) finger-up-nose (last name). He thought this was funny. A week or so later she was playing a usual game with him-she calls him some name, he giggles and says that’s not his name, she tries another one and so on. Then she asks him “Well, what is your name then?” He promptly replies (first name) finger-up-nose (last name). She laughed but a sudden thought made her ask him “You don’t tell other people that’s your name do you?”
He says “Yes”. Then a short pause. “Are you surprised?”
He’s one of us! Smart aleck genes run strongly in my family.
My 5yo the other night: “I had a scary dream. There was a giant, and we were hiding from him, and [fairly straightforward scary dream description] . . . and our neighbor’s yard was full of platypuses.”
Yep, my kid. My husband always boggles at my demented dreams.