Snow White for Uninitiated 40-something Parents

I came home tonight to find the two lads sitting on the couch, eagerly watching "Snow White," practically bouncing up and down on the couch as they watched it. Eventually, they built up to a full bounce, in stereo, on the couch, which works because Amy is out of the room. Because we temporarily have a giant-screened TV as well as our usual small one, they were watching it simultaneously on both screens. Ian told me all the benefits and liabilities of each screen, and said he can't help looking back and forth at both screens...

Apparently the witch, at least when she finally reached wrong-doing "cruising altitute", is enough to ruin young Daniel's appetite.

He remarked, "I see the witch's eyes so much that I'm not going to eat my popsicle if I see her eyes."

"Why not?"

"Because I don't like the way her eyes look. I do say she has evil eyes. They look kind-of bad."

I made the mistake of pointing out to Amy that the evil queen wasn't terribly bad-looking for a villainesse. [She has an excellent complexion, and that wonderful combination of light skin and dark hair and eyes - a bit of a Mediterranean goth-model.] The boys wanted to know what I was saying, so I explained that she doesn't look bad even if she is bad. At that point, Daniel set the record straight: "Daddy, she's a bad-guy queen."

In fact, he had a bit of timely advice for me as the witch was preparing the apple - just as she turned it blue-ish and it looked like a skull, Daniel counseled, "Daddy, if I were you, I wouldn't eat that apple, because it's yucky."

When I walked in, Ian announced something like, "This is our first movie," obviously trying to dissuade me from video-rationing. But what was really moving was how taken they were with the movie, and how eager they were to introduce me to this newfangled sensation, in significant detail. They seem to laugh at almost every little detail. During "Hi-ho", Ian enthusiastically sang along, way off key. [Daniel was singing the same song, even more off-key and in descant, the other day. Now I know where he got the impulse.] They made a specific point of pointing out the idiosincracies of the dwarves, apparently their favorite of whom is "Dofey." [For whatever reason, I'm not inclined to get them to say that word more correctly.]

Ironically, when another of the dwarves started stuttering - maybe Grumpy, in any case the one who looks like Jerry Garcia - Ian laughed and something like "That man says things wrong."

(February 4, 2010)