Not counting the ones he watched more than once, there was:
Finding Nemo
My Neighbor Totoro
How to Train Your Dragon
Despicable Me
Kung Fu Panda
Iron Man and Hulk (some random cartoon on Netflix)
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone
I’d like to just go ahead and nominate myself for mother of the year. We did do a few things besides park ourselves in front of the TV, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that we didn’t have many plans this weekend besides chores around the house, so we let the movies fill in the blanks.
Two months ago, this special parenting technique would not have worked. Lucas never paid attention to the TV for more than 15 minutes. But all of a sudden he’s taking interest, and to be honest, it’s sort of magical to start showing him all our favorites. Especially when he makes a face like this:
A weekend full of movies normally wouldn’t bother me, especially now that my son will cuddle up and sit still for a bit. But it stands in stark contrast to so many other Facebook fancy Labor Day weekends: trips to Martha’s Vineyard, that one last beach day, camping in Big Sur, and cookouts in the backyard with your whole damn East Coast family. I can’t help but feel a little wistful for a weekend like this, instead of having spent two hours in the closet clearing out old baby clothes:
Still, it’s not as though our weekend was a total wash. We had a great play date with Lucas’ best friend from school. We went for a couple walks around the neighborhood, played in the park a few times, and got Lucas a REAL big boy bed that seems completely enormous. It’s maybe possible we put it together wrong—yay for two completely useless handy folk in the house! Check it:
My mom loves to guilt me when we don’t do a lot of exciting things for Lucas on the weekends, but sometimes this is just the way things work out. We may not have the funds, our friends and family may be busy, or we may just have a bunch of stuff to do to keep our house clean and our backyard weeded, and our closets from overflowing with stuff we don’t need to hang onto any longer. Sometimes a weekend is just a weekend. We may not always have an amazing experience lined up for Lucas. But when we don’t, we’ve got the movies to make him smile, and bring a little magic right into our boring little lives.
The Olive Gal
green of skin, black of heart
