movies

Finally, the real Star Wars

| patmcg

Claire has been curious about Star Wars for some time now, especially with the boys in her class playing and discussing Star Wars every day. She has actually been somewhat confused by the whole thing. What is “R3D2”? Is Han Solo a good guy or a bad guy? Is Darth Vader a person or a robot?

At long last, some of the mystery was folded back tonight, her last day as a four-year-old, as chance would have it. Claire finally got to see (some of) Star Wars! The original Episode IV, aka Star Wars: A New Hope, happened to be on TV just before dinner. Normally we turn off the TV for dinner, but tonight we let it run and even rearranged the TV so that we could watch during dinner as a special treat. You just can’t pass up the original Star Wars falling right in your lap like that!

From past experiences, we thought Claire might be frightened by the movie, and Kit went to great lengths to explain that what she was seeing was not real. We talked a lot about how the director would say “cut!, and they would stop filming. Then everyone would change out of their costumes and go have coffee together, even the storm troopers and the good guys.

Claire was at times little scared by the movie. She continued to be frightened whenever Darth Vader appeared, even if he was just standing there. But mostly she was engrossed by the movie. Her eyes were glued to the TV all the way to the end. She said Princess Leia was beautiful, and we stressed that she was also brave. Claire liked when the good guys stole storm trooper uniforms so they could sneak around the Death Star unfettered. “They fooled the bad guys!”, she was quite fond of saying. When the movie was over, she asked us to record it so she could watch it again, but we told her it was a special or “sometimes” movie, and the next morning it was back to watching Arthur.

Star Wars, the fairy tale

| patmcg

Claire has never seen Star Wars, not even a little bit of it. But she is quite curious about it because most of the boys in her class play Star Wars and talk about it a lot. Yes, over 30 years after the original movie came out, it is still the king of boys’ playtime.

Not having seen it, Claire is trying to piece together the world of Star Wars from little tidbits of information here and there. She doesn’t even know what most of the characters look like. For a while she would ask me basic questions. Is Star Wars real? Is Darth Vader a bad guy? What is Chewbacca exactly? All she knew about Chewbacca was that he was furry and could be described as a “waking carpet”. I had to pull up a picture of Yoda on the computer because Claire did not really understand my description of him. I told Claire that Yoda was green, about her own size, 1000 years old, wrinkly, and he talked kind of backwards. Seriously, what’s so confusing about that?
Tonight during bath time, Claire made up her own saga — fairy tale, actually — of Star Wars. I was Luke Skywalker, and she was my kid. She talked really weird, not English or anything, and so did I. Darth Vader was coming to get us. Claire had magic powers and could turn herself into any princess or fairy except Princess Leia. When Darth Vader got close, Claire turned herself into a fairy, and she offered to turn me into any fairy I wanted. I just said, “Okay, uh, thanks.” We both used our fairy powers to float up into the sky where Darth Vader could not get us. When we went into her bedroom after getting her dressed, she pointed down at the floor and said Darth Vader was down there. She stuck her finger on the floor and said, “Ouch! He bit my finger!” When I walked across the room to hug her, she said, “You’re stepping on Darth Vader!” I could not tell if she was happy or upset about that.
Then Kit came to read Claire her bedtime story, and I went shopping at Target. There, passing the toy department, I saw countless Star Wars toys lining aisles. I almost — but did not — buy something for Claire to help her straighten out her Star Wars story.

Our Hero Horton

| patmcg

When we moved to Austin, we were the beneficiaries of free HBO for a couple of fleeting days. With access to all those great movies, we recorded as much as possible to the DVR. One such movie was Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who!, which somebody (Kit’s dad?) decided to record. How lucky for Claire.

Claire watched this movie the first time with Kit’s dad. She seemed to enjoy it, but she forgot about it pretty quickly. A week or two later, we had it on again for some reason. This time, it really clicked for Claire. I mean, really clicked. It has literally been the only thing she has watched on TV for the last three or four weeks. She has lost interest in all other shows. I tried to get her to watch some other shows over breakfast such as her old favorites The Little Einsteins, Olivia, or the newcomer Special Agent Oso. But Claire has none of it. “I want to see Horton,” she always explains. It’s not worth fighting over, and Horton really is a great movie, so what the heck.

Horton may have even surpassed the cast-induced obsession Finding Nemo as her favorite movie, and that is saying something. And I can see where Claire is coming from. These movies get better with each viewing. After a while, you start to feel a special attachment to the characters, like they are part of the family. And you start to appreciate some of the unnoticed funny lines and small details that are crammed into these quick movies. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen anything else except Horton for the past three weeks either!

By the way, we also got the original Dr. Seuss book that the movie is based on. To my surprise, much of the fine rhyming narration from the movie is actually not in the book. I assumed that all the charming, melodic narration was take straight from the book, but most of it is not. Also, the movie adds a whole lot of character development that is not in the book. It seems that screenwriters Ken Daurio and Cinco Paul (according to IMDB) may have out-Seuss’ed the beloved Dr. Seuss!

Ouch!

| patmcg

On Sunday afternoon, I took Claire and Muffin for what I thought was going to be a simple walk down Turtle Creek to Reverchon Park. Unfortunately, this innocent walk turned into a broken leg for poor Claire, all day Monday at the hospital getting her fixed up, and several weeks in a full-leg cast. So, not a good day.

Kit was off at work. After Claire woke up from her nap around 4:30, I decided to do something productive with that dubious time between nap and dinner, so I decided to take Muffin for a bath. This has been on the to-do list for weeks, but Muffin’s hygiene had repeatedly been pushed to the bottom of the list. Her white hair was turning yellowish now, and it was really time to get her clean.

When we pulled up to Dirty Gawgz, the self-serve dog wash place, it was closed — out of business. Muffin was out of luck again! Rather than just go straight home, I decided it would be fun for everyone to go for a little walk along nearby Turtle Creek. Muffin was very excited about the idea, but Claire was only luke warm. I think she said she would rather go get some ice cream. In retrospect, I wish I had listened to Claire.

We walked down the creek for about a half mile when we hit Reverchon Park and started to hear a crowd and some music. It was a festival of some sort. The minute I saw the inflatable “bounce house”, I nearly turned back before Claire (with her lower profile) could see it. I knew Claire would really, really want to go play in the bounce house, as she had enthusiastically done at many birthday parties. But I was not really “up” for a fair and not excited about keeping track of Claire and Muffin by myself in a crowded park. Just as I completed that thought, Claire saw the bounce house and yelled, “I want to go there!” I considered telling her we didn’t have time, or something along those lines. But the fact was that we did have time, and the only thing keeping me from letting her play was my own lack of energy and/or adventurism. Isn’t this the kind of thing childhood is all about? Stumbling apon a fair on a nice Sunday afternoon and getting to go play for a while? In retrospect, just this once, I wish my grumpier and more hesitant side had prevailed. But it did not.

We did a couple of arts and crafts first, to sort of warm up to the fair. But there was no line for the bounce house, so we headed that way soon. In fact, nobody was even watching the bounce house. Claire crawled in with two or three other little kids about her age and started doing her thing. Several minutes later, a pair of older boys crawled in. They were maybe 8 or 10 years old. Their size made me a little uneasy, but everything seemed fine as the older boys gave the littler kids some extra space. Even if I really wanted to, I had no good way of getting Claire out of there. The entryway was too small for me to climb in and grab Claire. Plus I had Muffin to keep track of. And have you ever tried talking a kid out of a bounce house? That must be like trying to talk a fish out of the water.

Then it happened. Claire fell down, as she had may times before in these bounce houses. But this time one of the big kids landed on her leg. Claire screamed and started crying. Everyone stopped bouncing. I pushed through to the entryway but again could not get in to rescue Claire, who was laying down grabbing her left knee and crying. The big kid looked confused and just said, “What happened?”

Claire dragged herself over to me at the entryway, crying. I picked her up and hugged her. I had completely forgotten about Muffin. Fortunately, Muffin is not the type of dog to run off. Plus a nice little girl had stepped on her leash to keep her from getting away. This was the only help I received from anyone during the whole ordeal at the park.

At this point, I did not know Claire’s tibia was broken. It turns out when you break a bone, it does not necessarily make an audible “crack” sound or any other obvious sign of breakage. I thought it was just a “normal” injury, as in “Ouch, someone bonked my leg!”, or worst case some sort of twist or sprain. After a few minutes, Claire has stopped crying, and I tried getting her to stand up so she could walk back with me. We had been through many seemingly similar situations over the years, and the standard drill I had worked out is to say sorry that hurt, now let’s move on and not wallow in it. But even though Claire had stopped crying, she would absolutely not put any weight on her left leg, and I ended up carrying her and walking Muffin back to the car.

One I got home, I called Kit to let her know what happened and to get her medical perspective. Claire was in decent spirits, but she would not walk. She was just happily watching TV while I talked to Kit. But Kit came home to check out the situation. Thinking it was still some sort of sprain, we put Claire to bed that night with one Tylenol to help ensure a good night’s sleep and waited to see how her leg was feeling in the morning.

Monday morning came, and she still would not put any weight on her leg. I took Claire to her regular pediatrician that morning. Claire was very excited about seeing the pediatrician because she usually gets a lollipop at the end of her visit. The pediatrician — much to my surprise — told me to take Claire to the emergency room! She said it was possible the leg or knee had a fracture or tear, and the ER would be able to do an x-ray and determine what was really wrong. We got back in the car, and Claire said, “Bummer.” I asked her if she was bummed about going to the hospital. She said no, it was not that. She was bummed because we forgot to get a lollipop from the pediatrician! Feeling guilty and knowing that we would be in for a long day at the ER, I got Claire a milkshake from the McDonald’s drive-through on the way to the hospital.

We went to the ER right by where Kit worked so she could come visit us and help provide some more seasoned medical perspective. Claire and I were very glad to see Kit. She made us both feel better from the shock of actually being in the ER, and she got to look at the x-rays to see what was really happening. After several hours of waiting, x-rays, more waiting, talking, taking calls from work, more exams, and more waiting, we left the hospital around 5:30 pm with a full-leg cast on Claire’s left-leg. Kit went back to the hospital to finish up her work late that night.

Amazingly, through this long day of boredom and uncertainty, without a nap or a regular meal, Claire stayed almost entirely calm. She had a few short moments of frustration and eagerness, but for the vast majority of the day, she showed amazing steadiness and maturity. At one point later that night, looking at our sweet little girl in a full leg cast, I started to tear up. Claire saw this and said, with genuine curiosity, “Why are you crying, Daddy? I’m not crying, and my leg is hurt. See?”

Not knowing if Claire could even put any weight on her leg, we were not going to just send her right to daycare the next morning. I had already missed a full day or work and canceled several meetings, with several more scheduled tomorrow. This ordeal was not only rearranging my own schedule, but some of my peers at work as well. So we called Kit’s parents late Monday night. They were on their way back to Texas from a long trip to the Northwest. They were in Kansas and said they could be in Dallas by 3 am so they could watch Claire on Tuesday. They snuck into the house undetected in the middle of the night and were ready to take over Claire duty in the morning. Their showing up on such short notice helped keep this difficult situation under control. My parents were unavailable because my dad was back in Houston recovering from a dislocated shoulder, which like Claire, he had suffered while out with me having “fun” (in this case working out) in uptown Dallas. I am bad luck, people.

Claire slept well, and when we woke her up the next morning, she saw her cast and said, “Can we take this off now?” That’s when Kit and I explained that the cast was going to help her leg heal, and she needed to leave it on until June or July to make sure her leg was okay. Claire listened paitently and accepted the news calmly. Until we got the new routine figured out and saw a specialist who would tell us exactly if and when Claire should walk around, we settled into a new routine which involved a lot of carrying Claire around and letting her watch a lot of TV, including her new obsession, Finding Nemo. I wonder if she will forever think of that movie as the “broken leg” movie.

That first day at home with Grammy, Claire scribbled a long note. She said it says, “Dear Mommy, thank you for coming to the emergency room with me and Daddy. And Daddy, thank you for loving us!” She and I really did appreciate having Doctor Mom with us at the emergency room.

Movie Mistake

| patmcg

Today we were looking for a fun activity to fight the post-Christmas blues. It was too cold for the zoo, and we wanted to do something new anyways. So we decided to go to a movie. This would be Claire’s first real movie in a theater!

The theater at the nearby mall had two cartoons showing in the late morning.The Tale of Despereaux was about a mouse who lives in some sort of castle and maybe sings or something. Then there was Bolt, about a scrappy superhero dog. We leaned towards Bolt since it looked cute and was about a dog, which is always fun, right? The reviews on imdb also favored Bolt, plus it was showing earlier in the morning. So it was clinched, we would take our sweet little girl to the cute movie about the scruffy white dog.

Bolt started out promisingly enough, with the expected cute puppy playing around with a little girl. I whispered to Claire that the little girl looked just like her. She seemed to enjoy the giant movie screen and the engrossing sound, all of which really shamed our little TV at home. Her eyes and mouth were wide open.

Ten minutes later, we had witnessed roughly three helicopter explosions, a pair of bad guys being “shaken down” for information with their car dangling off a bridge, the violent deaths of several evil guys in black suits and masks with deadly electric shocking hands, the destruction of an entire dessert valley along and the entire army of evil guys populating it, and of course several near-death incidents involving the scrappy white dog and the little girl who looked just like Claire.

Claire was terrified. Well, may not quite terrified, but she was definitely scared and grasping her mom’s arm really hard. She tried to say something, but I could not hear it. I asked if she wanted to leave the movie for a while, and she nodded her head. I took her out to the lobby to get some delicious theater popcorn. We sat in the lobby for a few minutes enjoying our popcorn. When we returned to the movie, it had settled down. In the movie, all of the mayhem was revealed to have been fake — a show within a show. But of course Claire did not understand these concepts. It was just scary to her, really scary. When the little girl in the movie got dragged off by bad guys at the protests of her howling dog, who was being dragged off somewhere else, Claire calmly asked to leave. And so we did.

Uh, what was this thing rated? Oops, it turns out Bolt was rated PG, which basically means, “think about leaving your sweet little three year old at home”. Normally we pay pretty close attention to what Claire sees and hears. But not today! We had assumed that Bolt was rated G, or maybe we just hadn’t thought about it at all. Either way, it was the idiot moment of the day.

We snuck next door to try out The Tale of Despereaux, which was just beginning and really was rated G. It started out as a nice sweet movie about some soup — yes, soup. Things picked up, and eventually a bunch of people were chasing down the silly protagonist rat, who was running for his life. There were no explosions or scary evil guys. It was standard old-school little kid cartoon stuff, lighthearted and decidedly more funny than scary. But Claire’s mood for this sort of thing had already been ruined by Bolt, and she politely asked to leave.

We spent the unexpected free time getting a little post-Christmas shopping done at the mall. Ann Taylor Loft had a kid’s bench set up outside the fitting room, filled with Dr. Seuse books, which was a nice touch. I read Green Eggs and Ham and Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? to Claire while Kit tried on sweaters. Claire may actually enjoy Bolt in another 10 years. It’s supposed to be a good movie, at least for the right audience. But for now, Dr. Seuse was just the ticket. It was silly and colorful and very G-rated.