What There's Time For

Dance As If No One Were Watching

Although some of you who know me might be surprised to hear this, I was considered nearly tone-deaf for much of my childhood.  I think it all started when I went to see my very first movie in a theater - Annie - and although I remember being a little intimidated by the whole theater experience (and quite upset by the mere concept of someone as horrible to children as Miss Hannigan), I ADORED the movie and spent weeks (months? years?) wandering the house "singing" The Sun'll Come Out Tomorrow and It's a Hard Knock Life at the maximum volume producible by my little 3-year-old lungs.  The only problem was (according to my mother) I pretty much had a "high" note and a "low" note, whereas those songs obviously have quite a few rather specific notes and you can imagine they might suffer a bit in the simplification.

Happily, I was oblivious to my own caterwauling and thus began a life-long passion for musicals.  Not like a listened-to-soundtracks-all-through-middle-school or tried-out-for-every-musical-theater-production or had-posters-of-Broadway-musicals-all-over-my-room kind of passion, but the kind of passion that makes me love India forever in spite of all its flaws because India has... Bollywood!

Through the magic of You Tube on our TV, I've recently been cheering myself and the kids up on cold, miserable, don't-want-to-go-outside days by dancing like a crazy person along with my favorite numbers.  I'm tickled to say that Shmoogie started really walking all over the place the day after our first Bollywood bash.  This was clearly the final reason she needed to focus on moving around while upright.  (That and carrying bags.  She loves carrying bags.)

I dare you to try it!  The only rules are (1) stand up before you press play and (2) DANCE AS IF NO ONE WERE WATCHING!!!  (Honestly, it's probably better if there really ISN'T anyone watching...)

 

See, wasn't that awesome?  (Don't worry about the ending - just the required Bollywood pathos.*)

 ***

*If you really want to know, the guy who falls down at the end is the demi-god of Bollywood, Shahrukh Khan, who in this movie plays an affably loveable hunk with a secret (and mysterious) heart condition that he knows will soon kill him.  He sadly falls in love at first sight with innocent, hardworking, slightly sad Priety Zinta, but stoically refuses to acknowledge his feelings to her even though she is also in love with him, because he knows he can't be with her for long in this life and wants her to be happily settled without him (because he loves her so much).  Khan orchestrates a romance between his love and another guy, which results in their marriage (this dance scene is part of the lengthy festivities).  In the end, the true story and motivations of all three become known to each other (before Khan dies and - I think - before the wedding) and the movie ends with a sob-enducing flash-forward to the husband and wife as an old happy couple talking about how Khan made their whole wonderful life together possible.  (The husband seems to have no problem with having been appointed the guardian-in-this-life of his wife, who Khan explicitly told him would be his again in every other incarnation, which... well... I think that would have played out a bit differently in a western movie.)

Ah, Bollywood!

Fun

Among the many astounding things Mr. Pants is suddenly capable of (mixed-blessing kinds of things, like being able to creep upstairs in the morning and "make" 6 pieces of toast with cream cheese all by his runny-nosed self... 6 pieces because still-sleeping Shmoogie clearly "wants some, too"), we have finally reached the point where it is FUN to go do something, just him and me.

The ever-present Buzz Lightyear fascination continues and appears to be fostering a budding interest in telescopes.  I think this started with the binoculars he got for Christmas, which led to You Tube surfing for a brief history of telescopes, which led to exciting videos on the building/launching/repairing of the Hubble Space Telescope, which involved space ships and astronauts and suddenly telescopes were extremely cool.  (Look!  Are they Space Rangers? he asks whenever an astronaut dons a space suit.)

And somehow this all ended up with me and him going to the IMAX theater on Saturday to see the Hubble 3D movie.

He thought it was great, especially because he got his own pair of glasses.  I thought it was great, even though it was dubbed in German, which I tried to quietly translate for him to keep him interested... but, really, he was very interested when Space Rangers speaking any language at all were on the screen, pretty interested when space ships were on the screen, and not much at all interested when phenomenal IMAX-huge Hubble images of nebulae and galaxies and solar systems were hovering before us in remarkably realistic 3D.

On the way home, he piped up from the back seat to say, "Mommy, I've been wondering about something very special all day."  Really?  What's that? I asked, with no idea what to expect next.  "Was Buzz Lightyear in that movie?"

***

And I just had to look through our photos and find this one of the Christchurch Cathedral, taken almost exactly 8 years ago (we took our honeymoon with a film camera and had a black and white roll in).  Which is not to say that any building matters at all when so many people are dead, severely injured, or grieving.  Just to say, I remembered this picture and the people of New Zealand are in my prayers.

 

Spellbound

Have you ever noticed that a lot of times stuff that sounds really romantic in theory or in retrospect is, in the actual experience, not all that great?  We only had one copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince when it first came out and we were both so desperate to read it that we ended up reading pretty much the entire thing out loud to each other in the course of about two days.  I remember the experience with great fondness, although I think at the time both of us were rather irritated not to just have the book all to ourselves.

It turned out we were far far apart when the final book was released, and I clearly remember devouring it in barely more than a day (waggling a particularly fun rattle over baby Mr. SleptAlotPants for the few hours he was awake).

 

But, ever so romantically, Mr. Right asked the baby sitter to come last weekend so we could see the movie.  He even - and this is pretty impressive given a very very bad experience with a subtitled Farsi film at the dawn of our relationship - grudgingly agreed to see it dubbed in German because I thought that would be fun.

Actually, I thought it would be fun to blog about.  But then the kids were sick and we weren't even sure if we'd get to go, but we left the baby sitter with a bottle of "Mexalen" (basically Tylenol, but Mr. SickPants hates it, whereas he thinks Tylenol is delicious, so...) and instructions that - we were sure this wouldn't actually happen, but just in case! - if he woke up after 9:30, he could have another dose.  It was snowing, we drove carefully to the theater, and I agreed that, really, we would enjoy the movie more if we saw it in English.  Partly because I would miss stuff in German and mostly because I hate how weird it is to hear someone else's voice coming out of the mouth of an actor you already know.

We had a really really good time.  We can't even remember when we were last in a movie theater at all, which could be part of it.  And we got the good seats, so it was basically like sitting on a couch, but with a much better screen.

And Mr. SickPants woke up promptly at 9:30, but our fabulous babysitter gave him some more Mexalen and he went back to sleep, so we didn't even know about it until we got home after 11.

I talked to him about it the next day and he didn't even remember seeing the babysitter, but was hugely curious about where Mommy and Daddy had gone without him.  Which eventually led to him shouting, "STUPIFY!" at me and Shmoogie for much of the rest of the day.  My belated attempts to introduce Expecto patronum! to banish fears of closet monsters have sadly had much less success.

PG: for "some peril and action"

After a bad experience with showing Mr. WannaWatchaMoviePants A Bug's Life (terrible movie!  Mr. Right watched it with him and regretted it), we've been very cautious about introducing new movies.  While sorting through our small DVD collection to loan to a friend, we came across Up, which we had enjoyed in the theater, and Mr. Right was all, "Oooo!  Let's show that to Mr. WannaWatchaMoviePants!" and I was all, "Uh, do you remember that movie?  No.  Way too scary.  And sad.  No."

Then I went to the grocery store.  And came back to find both of them enthralled, about half way through the movie.

Since then, I have been fielding lots of concerned questions (Why did that man break Carl's mailbox?  Why was Carl sad?  But why was that mailbox special to him?  Why did his wife die?  But why did her body not work anymore?  Why did Carl and Russel want to help Kevin?  Why did Kevin want to be with his babies?  When will my body stop working?) and trying to get Mr. WannaWatchaMoviePants to go to sleep alone like usual instead of crying and clinging and saying, But I'm sad about you!  But I'm worried about Carl's wife!  But I'm lonely about you!  

There have also been some impressive monologues:

(Out of the blue) Mommy, if you died, then I would be sad because I wouldn't have a Mommy anymore.  And if Daddy died, then I would be sad because I wouldn't have a Daddy anymore.  And if MarMar died, then I would be sad because I wouldn't have a MarMar anymore.  And if DiDi and PaPa died, then I would be sad because I wouldn't have a DiDi and a PaPa anymore. And then I won't have a family anymore.  And then I would be sad...

(While putting on shoes)  That's right, I can't wear those ones anymore because they're too big for me because my feet are taller now because I'm getting older and when I get very old then my body won't work anymore and I would die and then you would be very sad if I died.

(After being offered a "special treat" (Daddy had icecream in mind) if he ate his dinner)  A special treat like when Carl got married and they were happy and then his wife died?  Like that?  (Meaning, Can I please watch the montage at the beginning of the movie that shows their life together?)

His tone is always serious, but remarkably calm given that removal of a toy with which he is trying to hit his baby sister typically results in histrionic wails of, "OH, DEEEEAAAR!!!!  WHAT AM GOING TO DO WITHOUT MY TOY????!!!!!  OOOOOH!!!! DEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAR!!!!!" and facial contortions like this, but usually more dramatic:

***

Curiously (timing-wise), I just listened to a Science Friday segment on "Why we like what we like" and there was some discussion of why we enjoy (or at least seek out) sad or frightening movies/stories/etc.  The hypothesis was that we need to "practice" for adverse events in our lives and fiction helps us do that without being actually dangerous.

Looking it up ON THE LINE

Cars remains a big favorite with DS.  (It has been since long ago called The Pot Cars because the first time it was seen, DH had said, "Do you want to watch a movie with me about cars and we can have some popcorn?" and then DS decided the movie was called Pop Cars and then somehow decided it was Pot instead.)

Sunday afternoon, we were all sitting in the kitchen recovering from a fun but tiring weekend (Saturday included one single solitary 20 minute catnap for DD, and a random stranger at the playground borrowed our spare pair of jeans for DS because her daughter had peed her own pants - is that normal in Europe?  to ask someone for an extra pair of pants?  I'm happy to help, but it took me a while to even understand the question, it seemed so bizarre.  I think I would just take DS home in wet pants if it were me...) and DS is asking questions (as he often does now) and he wants to know what are the names of those cars on the highway that make "Lightning the Queen" fall out of his truck?

"Um, I'm not sure, hon,"  I look at DH, "I think one of them might be Wingo?  And, uh, Snotrod?"  (That last one only recently learned from a fellow parent.

"But what are all of their names?"

"I don't know, hon, maybe we could look it up online sometime," I say.

 "Yeah, yeah, you can look it up on the line!"  Then, when I make no move to do so, "What are the names of all of those cars that are on the highway that when Lightning the Queen falls out of his truck?"

"I don't know, sweetie."

"But you can look it up on the line and then you will know."

"That's true, we could."

"What are they called?  What are the names of those cars that are on the highway that Lightning the Queen falls out of his truck?"

"Sweetheart," says DH, a bit exasperated, "Mommy and Daddy don't know what their names are."

"Can you hand me my phone, please," I say to DH, rolling my eyes.

"What are the names of all of those cars that when Lightning the Queen falls out of his truck?"

"I don't know, sweetheart," I say, busily typing into Google, "I'm trying to find out."

"Yeah," he says, "You can look it up on the line and then Mommy and Daddy will know."

KA-CHOW!  (The rather embarrassing and perplexing, "I AM A STUCKY FISHY FISHY!" has suddenly been almost entirely replaced by the annoying, but blessedly-normal-for-his-peer-group catch phrase of Lightning McQueen.)

Drumroll....

They are the "Delinquent Road Hazards" and their names are Boost, DJ, Wingo, and Snot Rod (he has a cold).

I am so glad I know that now, aren't you?

*****

And, no, DS can't yet read anything, including Wikipedia pages, but I don't have a picture I can find of me using the phone...