25 Months (part two)

Quinn is growing up really fast all of a sudden. No longer is she a baby. She tramples around the house, walks all the way to the park and engages in all of our conversations with equal enthusiasm. She is a lovely and beautiful girl and every day I get to see a little golden ray of sun right here in my own home.

We watched Pinocchio the other night. I have this sense of nostalgia with many of the films from my youth, so that I have some euphoric fantasy of when we will get to watch them with our children. Unfortunately this often turns out to be a complete disaster. For one, the movies almost never live up to the hype (like every over-hyped movie ever in the history of film). I think this is evidence of a certain amount of amnesia that develops when we age. I've always been aware of this because there are so many things in life that we conveniently forget in order to survive throughout. Also, I've never been one to say that I won't do that when I grow up as we contemplate all of the terrible actions of those older than us. I like to have hope that I may be a more enlightened human being but I know that I do many of the things to my own children that I absolutely hated when my Dad did them to me.

You see, most of these movies are simply bad films. Because of the age of our children, many of the movies that we see are movies that we watched when we were that age. That means Disney! And boy Disney has a knack for seeming like they make good movies but actually totally failing over and over again. Their movies often reflect the era, which isn't so uncommon for movies to do, but why must they always choose to reflect some of the worst aspects of humanity at the time. Pinocchio is a perfect example, it was made in 1940 and it is racist and sexist and violent and derogatory. And don't think that they only did it back in the day, when people were more naive. Go ahead and watch something from today and try to convince me that none of those despicable traits are inherent within the film. Pinocchio was not a pleasant experience and may have traumatized our son. Now Quinn on the other hand loved it.

She isn't quite as sensitive by her environment as her brother. Lucas' nature is delicate and tender and beautiful. Now, Quinn is delicate in her own way but she has yet to be influenced greatly by what is happening upon the silver screen. Perhaps it is due to her age (although I seem to recall Lucas forcing us to stop when the scary part came on even at the beginning) and maybe we've allowed her earlier access because of her brother's increased viewing time, but so far she doesn't flinched when a child is swallowed by a whale.

I have a feeling that she is going to shrug off a lot of things that the rest of us find difficult to face. She has a glimmer in her eye that demands that others take notice and she won't back down from a fight. Her mother has that steely resolve within her and when it comes out it is hard to shake, but it is amazing to see and rally around. There's a little bit of Joan of Arc in my little girl and if we help guide her steps so that she can one day lead people in a positive way, then the world is hers for the taking.