December 23, 2003 - Tuesday
Last Friday, I went to the video store with Harry before picking up Jeremy rather than after. Things have gotten a little more complicated at the video store and, since I had a pretty good idea what movie I might get, I thought going in quickly with Harry made more sense than taking both. And, instead of letting Harry go off to the children's area I encouraged him to stayed with me while I scanned the shelves for what it was that mommy and I wanted. However, the tide has clearly turned at the video store and Harry, soon realizing what I was doing, said he wanted to look for "Finding Nemo," a movie I presume he's heard about at school.

Harry never watched any video longer than about 40 minutes, but I have to admit that the idea keeping Harry occupied for a full-length animated feature, especially at this time of year, didn't seem like a bad thing to try. So we went to find Finding Nemo. It is 100 minutes. It was also a One Night rental. That was too long for Friday evening, so I promised Harry that we would get it the next day when we brought mommy and my video back. He consented and that's what we did. In fact, I paid an extra dollar to make it a five night rental.

I was a little curious how Harry would last through a full-length feature, although I really didn't think he'd get bored. And, he didn't. Not knowing the story of Finding Nemo, I was a little concerned that it might have some scary parts, at least for a 4-year-old. That turned out to be true. In fact, when we watched it for the first time Saturday evening, Jeremy lasted no more than five minutes and there were a number of times during it that Harry said he wanted to stop it. But, we got to the end. Harry didn't get past the "sharks" when he watched it again with gramma and grampa on Monday night (mommy and I went out for the evening). But tonight, with remote in hand skipping over the beginning and the shark scene, it was really a fun movie for Harry. Jeremy even watched most of it. Somehow I kind of felt it kind of important to have watching it be remembered as a fun experience, especially because it's something that Harry has been talking about since Saturday, not in any specific way, but as a continuing theme for his imagination. Better that those inspirations be happy ones.


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