It's not that I do it often. But there are a handful of times throughout the day, chiefly when I'm trying to put the baby to bed, that I simply require the following from my children: 1) quiet, 2) quiet, 3) guarantee that no one will break something or die, and 4) quiet. In my experience, the only way to really be sure that I can have all these things at the same time while not physically present in the room is to get a little more acquainted with our friends Daniel Tiger or Caillou.
But this one time, I thought it would be fun to mix it up. To let them watch Milo and Otis (remember that movie? It's an adorable flick about a kitten and a pug puppy. Seriously.).
So there they are, downstairs watching the movie as I'm upstairs changing the baby, nursing her and putting her to bed.
Until... I hear Leah crying. Sobbing.
And before long, the same from Logan.
I called them both upstairs to the nursery to see what in the world had upset them so, and it turns out, that sweet, charming movie about the cat and dog has a dark side.
You see, there is a scene where Milo (or is it Otis? I'm talking about the cat, for the record) falls in a box and starts to float downstream on a river. And this absolutely broke my little Leah's heart, to the point of tears, because he was going away from his friends and he was going to be alone. Yep.
A little later in this scene, a baby bear decides it would like to make a quick snack of Milo or Otis or whoever, and even though the pug bravely protects his friend, Logan was terrified and ended up in tears too.
Yeesh. Nothing like a nice, wholesome family flick to traumatize the children.
Not long after this, we saw an advertisement for a life-sized, animated dinosaur exhibit. Logan absolutely adores dinosaurs right now, and I desperately wanted us all to go.
Except... well... the kid had just had a meltdown over a cat from twenty five years ago that surely would be costing us in therapy. These dinosaurs would not only be huge, but would move and growl and have features true to carnivorous animals. Would this be a good idea, or would he totally freak out?
So I prepped him. I showed him pictures and we talked a ton about dinosaurs and the noises and motions they would probably make. We growled like dinosaurs and chased each other around the house. He told me time and time again about how brave he was going to be.
And, it seems that the prepping paid off.
It was a pretty neat exhibit. And, the kids did wonderfully. Thankfully, there was no repeat of the Milo and Otis trauma.
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