The rats in the food freaked me out.
July 1, 2007 – 5:11 pm |Or, alternatively, Two Milestones.
Milestone One: Kong’s First Movie.
All five of us went to our first movie together. We saw Ratatouille, with the expectation that I would leave with Kong, age two, if he ran out of attention. Things went well … through the previews. He sat quietly, intent on the screen, thick square feet barely hanging over the edge of the movie chair, arm-pit deep in my bag of popcorn. After the previews there was a short animated film. He continued to watch and announced, quite loudly, to the whole theater that the character in the film had shown his butt (by simply pointing and cheerfully yelling “BUTT!” at the appropriate time).
Twenty-five minutes after we arrived, the movie finally started. Unfortunately, that’s exactly when Kong finished my popcorn. He threw the bag on the floor and turned his big brown eyes at me. I offered him my Sprite. We got about halfway through the movie by passing the big cup of Sprite back and forth. He would take a sip, make a big production of putting it back in the cupholder, pause, and then repeat the process, throwing me a proud grin each time he completed it successfully. All was well. Until he finished the Sprite.
About the time the rat was digging around in the soup du jour, Kong was throwing his shoes at the people in front of us and falling out of the seat. So we took a break. We walked around the lobby, and he pointed toward the theater screaming “Rat-a-tat-oo-ee.” I did what any good mom would, of course. I immediately bought a large bag of Skittles as bribery, and we returned to the movie. The people in front of us sunk a little lower in their seats. The Skittles bought me a few more minutes, but by the time the food critic was making his climactic visit to the restaurant, I surrendered, and we waited in the video arcade for the rest of the crew.
Maybe we’ll try again when he’s three.
Milestone Two: 5’s first joke.
5 has his sixth birthday coming up at the end of summer, and he’ll start kindergarten in the fall. The milestones have been flying by me lately as the independence of school age is a strangely new and uncharted territory. Suddenly my baby boy is doing things like making his own toaster breakfast and turning on the shower. He corrects my math, breaks into the lyrics of songs I’m sure he’s not heard more than once, asks ridiculously difficult questions about theology, and nearly reads. It’s crazy, but Friday- well, Friday on the way to the movie, he delivered his first real joke.
Of course he’s been attempting comedy for awhile. He tells endless, pointless knock-knock jokes and has been trying for some time to correctly deliver ”Orange you glad I didn’t say banana again.” We’ve taught him a riddle or a joke or two, and he’s repeated them to others, timing slightly off. But, Friday, as we walked into the movie, he mastered his first piece of original comedy. …
“Mom, I’m not sure we should see this movie,” he said, smiling slightly, eyes asparkle, “since we haven’t seen the first one.”
“The first one?” I asked, right on cue.
“Yeah, Rata ONE ee,” he delivered, as he buckled over in an uncontainable giggle.
According to hubs, this is the kind of geeky joke that’s right up my alley. Must be, because it gets me every time.
