Tuesday, May 26, 2009

but is it really mocking if there is love?

so today . . . diandra and i took rollie to see the new "night at the museum" movie. we were finally celebrating his birthday, which was actually two weeks ago, but his birthday fell on mother's day. and this year his mother was here for that special day, so we chose to postpone his birthday celebration and instead focus on having his mom here.

we all have years that we have to share our birthday--well, sort of. my birthday is the day after valentine's day. always. but it isn't a problem for me, because rollie never rolls the two holidays together. we always celebrate valentine's day, and then my birthday. but still, it is close. rollie and diandra, though, have years where they actually have to share. you see, sometimes rollie's birthday falls on mother's day, and sometimes diandra's birthday falls on father's day. so in our family, we have created the tradition of not being tied to the calendar when it comes time for one of these special days.

we started doing that before either rollie or i were a dad or a mom, when it wasn't even really an issue yet, because diandra hadn't burst onto the scene. (actually she came very slowly onto the scene--but again, for your mental comfort i choose not to tell about that--at least not today.) it started with christmas. when we were first married and deciding what to do about the holidays, we decided that although we were going to our parent's houses for christmas, we wanted to have our own celebration too. so we would have christmas at our house, and then christmas with my extended family on christmas eve, and then christmas morning with my family and christmas afternoon with rollie's family. when diandra was little (and probably even now when she is big,) she loved it--four christmases every year! so for us, as long as we get to celebrate, we sometimes play a little fast and loose with the dates . . .

since we had decided to postpone rollie's birthday, we thought we would celebrate the following friday afternoon. and then we got the terrible news about my uncle jim, and i ended up spending that afternoon packing and flying up to portland.

ok, so plan b--we were going to celebrate last friday, but diandra ended up with a youth event that night, and she was going to be spending the day running all over town preparing for the evening.

ok, so plan c--we would do it on monday afternoon. it was a holiday that all of us would have off. so we all wrote in on our calendars (well, actually we all put it into the calendars on our phones--we don't use paper much anymore, except for post-its,) and started looking forward to that. the day came, diandra was home--and then my intestines decided that they wanted the day off too. so another plan was thwarted . . .

finally this afternoon we made it! all three of us were sitting in a row in the dark with our movie food. and then the movie started . . . it was very cute--all these historical creatures coming to life, the battle of good vs evil, the underlying love story, the comedy, the drama, it was all there. and then, near the end of the movie when amelia earhardt was flying a replica of the first airplane around washington d.c., rollie leans over to me and says these words--"that plane could never really fly like that!"

this happens almost every time we watch any movie! there comes a point where the unbelievable suddenly becomes unbelievable to him! so i am sitting there thinking, "YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING ME!!! THIS IS THE PART THAT YOU FIND UNBELIEVABLE?!?!?" yes, in my mind those words are in caps!

to this point in this particular movie we have watched life-size wax figurines of teddy roosevelt, general custer, sacajawea, cavemen, a t-rex skeleton, tiny little cowboys and roman soldiers all come to life when the sun hits a golden tablet (that looks suspiciously like a big cell phone pad to me.) we have seen characters ENTER into famous paintings, run around, and then jump out again. we have seen napoleon, al capone, and ivan the terrible try to get the good guy. we've seen bronze and marble statues move and speak and stone cherubs fly and sing. all this, and he finds the airplane flying over washington d.c. to be hard to believe . . .

it is always interesting to me at what point he reaches his limit of believability. because unless we are watching a true story (which we rarely do, unless it is one of those heartwarming sports stories where the little team that couldn't, suddenly does,) it is all fiction--there are elements of every story that stretch the limits of reality. and we go along with it, with those amazing coincidences that pull us into the story, because we want to be entertained. we want to escape reality for a little while, so we suspend it.

but for rollie, there always comes a point where his brain pauses, and says, "wait a minute . . . " and that's when i hear those inevitable words, "there's no way . . . "

and every single time it happens, i look at him and say, "really?!?!" i admit, i say it with a little bit of an attitude, and it is usually accompanied by an eye roll. then he looks at me, and responds in the mature way that i have come to expect--he sticks out his tongue, and then he folds his arms and smiles. he knows it has happened . . . again. it's like he gets so caught up in the story that he forgets that i am going to mock him when he reaches his believability limit. and then he says those words, "no way . . ." and the game is on . . .

5 comments:

Al said...

i cant believe you didnt mention darth vader..

Sherry Hunt said...

So as I was reading this out loud to Nathan (when he could understand me as I was trying to laugh and speak at the same time), he looked at me and said very seriously,"but the t-rex acted like a t-rex and the good guys and bad guys acted like their characters should act. BUT the plane acted in a way it never could or would." It cracks me up that he sees Rollie's point of view and found the fact that you and I see it as very funny a little strange.

Men are from Mars ...

Sherry

Jewelielyn said...

al--i totally forgot darth vader. he was just so un-darth vaderish. he didn't even speak!
sherry--maybe it is a man thing. and here, all along, i thought it was a rollie thing!

Al said...

now i gotta bring my boy to the movie to see his reaction on reality and not!!!

Muir Adams said...

That is hilarious! But the more I think of it... I realize I do the exact same thing Rollie does, more often than not :-D