Picture a love story, from childhood, then all through adult life, the difficulties of being unable to bear children and finally to the death of one of the couple. Picture that story being told in animated film and being skimmed through in about three and a half minutes. Does that sound like a sequence that would reduce a grown man to tears? Well, they made that scene so well that I was this [my thumb and forefinger are almost touching] close. Moist eyes, lump in throat. Only for I was watching it with some nieces and nephews who would remind me about it weekly for the rest of my natural life, I would have been a sobbing mess. This part is completely irrelevant to my story, by the way. I also fancy myself as a movie critic but that's for another blog.
The other stand out aspect was Dug. Dug is a speaking dog and responsible for the funniest parts of the movie. His speech is enabled by an electronic collar that translates his barks and growls into clear, if not eloquent, English. I remember hearing somewhere that Star Trek inspired a generation of inventors to produce automatic sliding doors, pocket size communicators and there is probably someone in a lab working on a phaser gun as I type. I can only hope that someone is working on a collar that translates barking into speech and that it can be adapted to help infants communicate better. This is the slightly more relevant part.
While I was slowly meandering to my point I thought a tropical storm was a fitting analogy for this post and I am determined not to let the fact that I live in Ireland and am not at all familiar with such storms stand in my way. I normally try to write about what I know but dull, grey, misty rain does not fit with the story I want to tell.
So, finally to the point of this post. Hannah was out training tonight so I was home with the boys. [This does not mean that one of them got injured by the way!] Normally in the evening we will give them something sweet before they go to bed and tonight I heated up two small pots of rice pudding. Monkey Boy ate his gratefully but Fat Chops resisted [belying his already inappropriate nickname]. I tried several times to get him to taste it which resulted in him using a scowl that no one under voting age should be allowed to use. Think, clouds gathering on the horizon, the wind picking up a little bit and the first raindrops starting to fall.
OK, I thought, he's just acting up a little bit. I'll use a bit of reverse psychology and feed his pot to Monkey Boy. The clouds darken overhead. He stomped as petulantly as anyone who is limited by only a couple of months walking experience possibly could and buried his head in the couch, ocassionally turning around to show me the scowl that he has already perfected [he gets that from his mothers side]. And then the rain starts to fall.
Maybe, he just doesn't feel like rice pudding tonight, I thought. It was a moot point anyway as his brother had already devoured the second pot. I went out to the kitchen and got him a yoghurt instead. Now, the hurricane starts in earnest. Driving winds, beating rain over a backdrop of dramatic lightening. Yep, I pushed him over the edge into a fully fledged tantrum, he lay himself on the ground, kicked his feet and pushed his vocal chords and my ear drums to their limit.
A man only has one choice in this situation. The Wiggles. Four camp Australian's who are beloved by parents everywhere for the twenty minutes guaranteed peace that they can provide at the flick of a switch. Then, as quickly as it descended, the storm evaporated, the clouds dispersed and the sun came back out. Fat Chops looked at the screen, shook his little booty to the strains of "Big Red Car" and beamed a grin through the tears.
Now, can someone please get me a translator collar so that I can figure out what the hell that was all about!!!!
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