10 Points for … GRYFFINDOR!

It was a mixed weekend — on the high side of average, but with two giant, giant highs. I'm too tired to write about  both now so I'll start with the epic Friday Night Party. Remember how I've been wanting to read my child Harry Potter aloud since about 2001? Cody wasn't even a glimmer in my eye then, but I knew it would be unforgettable. And it really was. As my regular five readers know, I'm perhaps overly picky/protective/obsessive about what we allow the kids to watch, read, and listen to. Which explains why there was no TV until Cody was about three, and then it was Mary Poppins for a year, and eventually two or three tame Disney movies, and Mr. Rogers. We gradually added Thomas the Train (thanks, Emma), Polar Express, and the occasional Sesame Street. I bought Home Alone for Cody for Christmas, then chickened out. I decided to wait on it because I didn't want him acting like Kevin McAllister (a real possibility; Cody can be a real nudge and enjoys the idea of acting out a little too much) or hearing "sucks" or "ass" or even "sucks ass." So we did Toy Story instead. For the first time. 

I know, I know. I realize most parents think this is insane, and they're probably right. There are plenty of times I think so, too. Especially in the winter, when the days are long, and tempers are even shorter than attention spans. I'm trying to just accept that I do not have easygoing, restful children. They're alert, curious, awake, interested, prying, loquacious, and — well, demanding. Which is, I suppose, their right. It does get tiring, though, and there are moments I wish I could park them in front of computer or video games. But for my own crazy reasons, I don't. Part of it is that I know those days will come. Video games and iPods, like Nerf guns (thanks, Santa), cannot be avoided forever. That will all happen eventually. It's every teenager's birthright. And it's totally okay. And part is that I can see both Cordelia and Emma, having been exposed to more, being totally thrilled to be in the presence of a screen for hours on end. (I can hear JVL saying, "Wait: why is this a bad thing?" : ) This is actually incredibly helpful now on long car rides — iPad movies have saved us.) But for now, even though many times I really, really, really DON'T want to hear what they just HAVE to say RIGHT NOW (all of them simultaneously) and would like to just PLUG THEM INTO SOMETHING, deep down, I really do want to know. And yes, I know these things are not mutually exclusive, but I suck at balance, as we all know.

Baby, I don't know why I go to extremes. So, here we sit, with me overthinking the right time to introduce certain pieces of culture and all their implications. Like, witnessing the brutal murder of one's parents and being suddenly thrust from a safe crib into orphanhood and a decade of abuse and deprivation forced on an unsuspecting infant wizard by dark powers (a nice prelude to the eventual Bruce Wayne storyline, if you think about it) and all the attendant clashes of good and evil. Cody's sensitive, and I (it turns out, correctly) didn't think he was ready for the scary parts of Harry Potter until this summer. We could talk through the murder stuff by focusing on the power of love and friendship and the triumph of good over evil. Yadda yadda yadda (I mentioned the quiddich). So I read it to him first, and it was an amazing bonding experience. Then, to stall the eventual More Murder and Mayhem (those books get pretty dark, pretty fast) I told him we could move on to book two after he'd read the first book on his own. I thought that was pretty clever of me. 

This elicited, at first, a storm of protest, and then a month or so of stalling. He's a bit of a reluctant reader at times. Not reluctant because of a lack of skill; he's actually an excellent, intuitive, and fairly fast reader. When he gets hooked, he can't stop. But hooking him can be a challenge. I think it's because there are so many other things he'd rather be doing physically. Being outside. Building stuff. Taking stuff apart. Organizing his stuffies. Assigning homework to his family members so that he can then grade us mercilessly. Tormenting his sisters. He's never been one to sit still, and reading requires—well. So he took his sweet time getting down to it, but then was hooked right back in. 

When he got about two-thirds of the way through, I told him there was … a movie version of the book. 

Mind. Blown.

Then I told him we'd go to dinner and have a sleepover and screening in the basement — just the two of us — when he finished. 

Mind. Blown.

This past Saturday, he was on the penultimate chapter around 7:30 when he went to bed. He didn't want to keep going because that's when it gets really, really scary. I told him to just come in to my room in the morning, because it would be less scary in the daylight. Then I tucked him back in. And around 9:30, we heard running footsteps in the hallway and he burst downstairs shouting, "I DID IT! I FINISHED IT! THREE HUNDRED AND NINE PAGES! I FINISHED IT! CAN WE HAVE DATE NIGHT ON FRIDAY?"

It was one of the best moments of mothering him, ever. He was so proud of himself, and it really is an accomplishment for a six-year-old (at least, I think it is, though I have almost no basis for comparison, and comparison is totally bad and counterproductive anyway). The point is, he was just thrilled about it, and in my book, it totally deserved a House Cup. 

So Friday night, off we went to the Cheesecake Factory (his choice) for our date. The pictures are awful, but it was so nice to just have HIM. I never get just him, and he never gets just me. And we really need it.

Then we tucked into the pullout bed, broke out popcorn, and stayed up watching the movie. Which he loved. He shrieked, he giggled, he covered his eyes, he gasped — and I realized that as insane as I am about media, I'm glad in this case that I held out. Because it wasn't just something passing across the transom of his mind and getting lost. He wasn't looking for the next thing. 

It was … magic.