movie night - "Sleeping Beauty"

We've been seeing a fair number of princess movies lately, and it is interesting to see my son's response.  He is still young enough that he doesn't care if the movies are girly - he just wants them to be compelling - so I am enjoying sharing things with him that I loved when I was a kid.  We are reading "Charlotte's Web" and the American Girl Kaya and Kirsten series; he enjoyed watching "the Little Mermaid"; and last week, I took him to see "Beauty and the Beast" as his first 3-D movie.  He was enthralled, laughed out loud, and told me in a few places that he didn't like the movie (because the violence was scary).  He didn't notice the missing mother, but was really upset that Belle didn't get to say goodbye to her father.  He was also concerned about Gaston falling off the roof.  Disney is really fond of the bad guys stabbing the hero and then falling off of something.  Apparently there can't be a happy ending unless the evildoer dies. 
We use www.commonsensemedia.org for our recommendations on movies, books, etc., and now that he is 4, a whole new crop of movies are potentially appropriate.  We veer outside of their guidelines occasionally, but we are almost always sorry when we do.  Sometimes even their guidelines seem a little suspect; Spence was really concerned about much of "Sleeping Beauty."  Part of that, though, is that as a boy, he is steeped in firetruck lore and robots and space and dinosaurs, and has almost no background to explain magic, spells, fairies, true love, enchanted sleep, shapechanging evildoers, dragons, etc.  There was a lot of explaining to do, to the point where it got annoying to keep explaining over and over why Aurora and everyone around her had fallen asleep, why Maleficent had kidnapped the prince, why Philip and Aurora were supposed to get married, etc.  It was interesting to get his viewpoint, though, and in the end, he really loved the movie. 

In an effort to have a happier, friendlier relationship, I spent some time before the movie chatting with him about how I watched it when I was a little girl, etc.  He asked me, "What did you like about it, Mom?"  Trying to think back that long ago to remember what I liked about it, and sharing that with him, was nice.  He has become such a little person, with his own views and interests - and not just the ones that I share with him.  He spends a fair amount of time cuddling with his teddy bear in his bed and whispering to her, and he suddenly wants privacy all the time.  I am so grateful that I get to watch him be newly grown-up while I am snuggling his baby brother - it is something I thought we might not get to do, and it is a wonderful feeling.

I love the idea of theming up everything, and I will try to theme the menus for future movie nights.  I'll post details as I have them.

I also haven't posted the birthday party wrap-up.  Since a lot of my planning involved reading about other people's parties on the internet, I will repay the favor in a few days and post the details and where I got ideas from.  Today, we made thank you cards using his footprint and a sharpie to create firetruck art.  I think they came out well, and they were pretty fun to do.  Definitely product and not process oriented art, but sometimes that's how it goes.