A Pirate's Life for Smee

We’ve gotten into this bad habit of watching movies in the evening. Once it’s dark, we settle on our couch to snuggle in front of some kid-friendly film. I keep thinking that once it’s warm out, we’ll stop. We’ll see, I guess.

In any case, last night’s movie was Disney’s Peter Pan. I hadn’t seen the film in a long time and I had forgotten how painful parts of it really are. At first, I was struck by its misogyny – the female characters are either saintly mothers or sexy hotheads who are so insanely jealous of any other woman’s attention to Peter that they resort to betrayal and physical aggression. But then it occurred to me that the male characters don’t really fare any better – Mr. Darling is a doddering fool, the lost boys are uncouth animals in need of the civilizing touch of a woman, and Peter himself is a portrait in immature self-indulgence. And yes, I know that’s the point – never having to grow up, resisting responsibility, blah blah blah, but really, his faults are less about being a little boy and more about being a plain old cad. And then there’s the “Injuns”…ugh.

In any case, I was kind of relieved when the squeaker grew bored and decided to play with his Playmobil pirate ship instead. I guess I’ll have to decide if he can watch it again. Most of the movies we choose are not so full of overt and outdated stereotypes. The squeaker likes Mulan (which sometimes seems to play into stereotypes in its efforts to skew them, but is a good film nonetheless) and Lilo & Stitch. We don’t have Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, and I think they’d be painful to watch with him.

Still, watching the film created the opportunity for a most amusing exchange with the squeaker. I usually explain the movie when we are watching it for the first time; I tell him about the plot and point out the characters. So when Captain Hook and the bumbling Smee appeared, I said, “That’s the pirate Captain Hook and that’s Smee, his helper.”

The squeaker watched for a while, and then gave me a perplexed look. When Smee appeared again, he said, “Mama, that’s you?”

“What? That’s Smee.”

“It’s you?”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t say it was me. I said it was Smee.”

And then I realized how it sounded to him.

Hum drum

This morning, it was 13 degrees when I left the house for work. I know the calendar says that spring is two weeks away, but I’d really like to file a complaint somewhere, with someone. Haven’t we had enough of the cold and the ice and the snow? Ugh.

I did see that next week includes some temperatures in the mid-60s, though.

Anyway, enough about the weather. I’ve started a few blog entries lately only to decide that I was just too tired and grouchy to finish them. I’m still not feeling very inspired. Maybe I just don’t have much to say right now.

Some things that are on my mind:

I weaned the squeaker. I thought it would be hard, but it wasn’t. I had already eliminated most of his nursing sessions by telling him that we save nursing for bedtime. Then I reduced bedtime nursing to just a few quick minutes. For a few days in a row, the squeaker forgot to ask to nurse at bedtime. On the night when he finally remembered, I told him we don’t nurse anymore. He fussed a tiny bit, but then snuggled down to sleep.

He doesn’t really seem to miss it. It’s funny that something so important to him just a few short months ago now matters so little.

I don’t really miss it, either. I thought I would, but he’s a very snuggly little kid, and now we just curl up on the couch with a book instead of curling up to nurse. It’s just as cozy. And it means that he no longer comes flying at me in agitation when I get home, yelling “Nurse! Nurse!”

Next task will be tackling use of the potty. I have a feeling it will be a painful process.

Another exciting thing is that we got him the Monsters, Inc. figures for his birthday, and he loves them. This would not seem like an exciting thing, but they aren’t available in stores anymore, so his papa had to go searching for them on e-bay. They arrived in the mail just before his party, which was lucky.

I am glad he is happy with them, and I think they were a good gift, but I’ll miss seeing him use a tennis ball as Mikey and a piece of string as the slithery Randall.

That’s all for now. Maybe I’ll feel more inspired later.