Movies
After school today in which Joel was studying Martin Luther and the reformation, Bethany was doing chemical solutions and spelling, Grace was painting whales (for a project I’ll talk about later) and Hannah was watching Tom and Jerry, we went to the movies. Not to be outfoxed again like last week (where the seats were all sold out to daycares, argh!) I got there early and bought tix to Nim’s Island and Speed Racer. Hah! 5 less seats for you, you insidious daycares! Tickets in hand we went to pick sour cherries and eat lunch.
These sour cherries were not ready yet, but the kids had fun picking them anyway.
I should have warned them not to eat them! Then we played at the park for a bit, someone isn’t too old to play.
Back at the movies we sat down to Nim’s Island first. The story starts off as Nim (the girl) is recalling a story that her dad told her. Her mom was a marine biologist (Grace perked up at this) and was studying blue whales (Grace really perked up at this!) One day when she was out in the boat a big ship came by and scared the whale and the whale ate the mom, boat and all. Then we see the island they live on, it’s in the South Asian Pacific Ocean, Nim is climbing up a coconut tree and she says, “I don’t go to school, I’m homeschooled. What I don’t learn from my friends on the island I get from books.” She loves to read and her stories come alive. When she reads her favorite adventure novel the action is fought out around her bed. Anyway, her dad leaves on a mission to find some protozoa (he’s a scientist) and Nim is left alone. She gets an e-mail from Alex Rover (her favorite hero.) Of course it’s Alex Rover the author, but Nim thinks it’s the real Alex Rover. The author has writers block and wants to ask the scientist a few questions. Over the course of e-mails, Alex finds out that Nim is alone, her dad is gone, she’s 11 and she’s hurt. Nim asks for help, thinking Alex Rover the adventurer will come. The author however is OCD and paranoid, agoraphobic and hasn’t left her apartment in 4 months. She has dozens of bottles of purell on the counters and only eats progresso soup. I’ll leave the story at that, but it was a very nice, family fantasy story. The only thing I have to say bad about it is that Nim calls her father by his first name on occasion.
Speed racer, hmm….if you get seizures from lights flashing from behind trees, this movie is not for you. If you thought the cartoon was hokey, this movie is not for you. If you like loud noises, bright lights, cartoonish actors, animation, hokeiness, and bad jokes, you’ve come to the right movie. While Nim’s was worth 50 cents, I’d say Speed was worth 25 cents. Hannah thought it was too loud, I laughed a few times at some silly jokes, and I must not have watched the original cartoon much (because I just found out that Racer X is Speed’s brother.) They did a good job getting people to fit the cartoon, Speed was good, Pops, Spritel, and Racer X. I think it would have been better to make the movie more real and not so cartoony though.
We went home and got James and went to Texas Roadhouse to eat (our favorite place.) We have these kids eat free tokens and they keep giving them back to us after the meal! Anyway, towards the end of our meal a family behind us was having problems with their 4 yr. old. The problem was he was screaming and the parents were using the ‘let’s ignore him’ method. This drew irritated stares from the older couple next to us, so the dad acted. He pulled the kid up by one arm and then squeezed his arm (which only led to more caterwauling.) Then he decided to squash the kid down in the seat and push him with both hands, I guess in hopes of making him shut up. At this point the irritated looks grew to disapproving. People please, if your kid has never been disciplined before take them to the bathroom and try to explain what’s going to happen. Maybe that was his discipline, but it wasn’t working. This is why people in restaurants always look at us when they see a family of 6 approaching. But, in the end, I receive compliments on my kids 9 times out of 10 when we eat (and the 1 time we don’t they were still good, just no one commented.) Now, I’m not saying that my kids are wonderful polite examples of what a child should be, but when we eat out there is no screaming, running around, and dropping stuff, spilling stuff, yelling, poking, or anything else. I always hear, “I just want to tell you how nice it was to eat dinner next to your family.” “You’re children were wonderful during dinner.” “It’s so nice to sit next to someone with kids and not hear them” Usually I just say thank you and wonder what they are talking about, don’t all kids act like this? Well, last night was a rude reminder that no, all kids don’t act like that and sometimes there is a good reason, but this time it was just a dad squeezing the life out of his kid. So, parents of children who act out (by which I mean children who can act in an orderly manner at an outing) if you have never disciplined your kids before, start now or sit far away from me in the restaurant!
Oh, the whale thing. Grace is selling limited copies of her whale pics. She is going to donate the money to Clearwater Marine Aquarium in Fl (which we’ll be visiting) and maybe Mote whale hospital (which we hope to visit.) All money will go to either one or both of these places. They both have rehab hospitals for whales and work to save all kinds of marine life. She has a Blue whale.
A Right whale.
And the last one, Humpback fluke at sunset.
