A Star (Wars fan) is born

Most Friday nights chez Party of 3 are pretty laid back. After the long school/work week (especially now that 2 week-night soccer practices are thrown into the mix), Fridays are all about kicking back and relaxing. We usually head over to Carp Video right after I pick the girls up from daycare and the girls choose a movie each and then after dinner and a trip to the playground (weather permitting) we change into PJs and watch a movie and eat popcorn. It's how we unwind.

And since we do this nearly every Friday, we've pretty well watched all the movies in the children's section of the store. We have our favourites -- Rae especially likes to rent the same movies over and over -- but Leah has been looking for something different. She really likes the Harry Potter movies, though they tend to be too scary for Rae.

So when I saw the ads for the new Indiana Jones movie, I had a brainwave. Maybe it was time to introduce the girls to Raiders of the Lost Ark. They were very excited. I remember loving that movie. I am apparently brain damaged, as I evidently had forgotten almost everything that went on in this movie -- the bloody impaled native guide, the poisoned monkey, the dessicated mummy corpses, the melting face/drying out and crumbling to dust face/exploding head during the finale, and all that other good gory stuff. Rae fell asleep before Indy reached the first jungle temple, which was probably a good thing. Leah....well, if Leah was an 8-year-old boy instead of an 8-year-old girl, she probably would have loved the movie. As it was, she had her eyes hidden for most of it. I kept offering to turn it off, but she'd say "No Mom, I want to watch." And by 'watch' she meant bury her head in the pillow she had balanced on her drawn-up knees while plugging her ears. Sigh. So Saturday, it went back to the video store.

I had another brainwave. Star Wars! Yeah, I bet she'd love that. And she did. I hadn't seen the movie in years, and I had forgotten how much I loved it too. But it was tucked away in the synapses. I started quoting dialogue along with the characters, "The Jundland wastes are not to be travelled lightly", "You've never heard of the Millennium Falcon? Should I have? It's the ship that made the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs.", "I have a bad feeling about this.", "This is some rescue. When you came in here, didn't you have a plan for getting out?". It was like seeing old friends again. And Leah's hooked. She's watched it three times already and is full of questions like "If Obi-wan is dead, how can Luke hear his voice?", "Why did Obi-wan let Darth Vader kill him?". She's impatient for next Friday, and The Empire Strikes Back.

Leah is just captivated by Obi-wan. Rae is more of a Luke Skywalker fan. Neither of them can quite understand their mother's preference for Han Solo.

(Oh, but you will, girls, you will. Someday.)