Movie Trivia

Oliver: Okay, Mom - what would be worse - to get your finger cut off, or your thumb?

Me: Oh, wow. (As usual, I had been given no warning that we were about to have this fun conversation). Um, probably your thumb.

Oliver: Why?

Me: Well, you have lots of fingers, and only one thumb, and if you lose your thumb it would be hard to pick things up.

Oliver: Oh, yeah. That makes sense. But which one would HURT worse?

Me: I bet it would feel the same. I think they would both hurt pretty bad.

Oliver: Then I NEVER want to get my finger or my thumb cut off.

Me: Well, then you should probably always be careful around things like knives and doors.

Oliver: Yeah, and Gollum.

Me: ?

Then I remembered that at the end of Lord of the Rings movies Gollum bit Frodo's finger off. So I guess he probably is a character that we should try to steer clear of, especially if we want to keep all of our fingers. Which we do. It's a good thing we have Oliver around to remind us of things like this.

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Speaking of movies, Tristan did something the other day that reminded me and Daniel that he's getting too smart for us. One evening Daniel and I noticed that the show "Holes" was on TV. We watched a little bit of it, and then decided to record it to watch with the kids the next day. Daniel had realized that the main character in Holes is the same actor who plays the main guy in Transformers, which as I've mentioned, is one of Oliver's top movies. Anyway, the next morning we got all set to watch it with the kids (it was a Saturday), and Daniel thought it would be fun to see if Oliver could recognize the main character. He said, "Oliver, pay attention when we turn on the movie and see if you recognize anyone." We knew it would be kind of tricky, because he's so much younger in Holes (in fact, I hadn't even been able to figure it out the night before) but we thought maybe Oliver could do it because he's really good with visual stuff like that. Ollie never even got a chance. Before we even turned on the movie, Tristan said, "Okay, I'm guessing it's Sam from Transformers." Daniel and I just looked at each other and started laughing. We couldn't believe he had figured it out without even seeing anything. I asked him how he knew, and he said something like, "Well, I could tell that you thought Ollie would know who it was, which made me think maybe it was a person from a movie Ollie likes, and I know one of the movies he likes is Transformers." So there went our little guessing game. Tristan was very pleased with himself.

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Speaking of Ollie's love for all things Transformers, I think a little bit of that has started to rub off on Rachel. Recently I have noticed that she uses the word "transform" instead of "change". She says it very casually, as if it's perfectly normal for a 3-year old to be using the word "transform" on a regular basis. Examples:

• "Oh, Mom! Did you see how when I put on my nightgown I transformed into Wendy from the Peter Pan movie?"
• "That's dang weird how the oven can transform that dough into bread."
• "When am I going to transform into a grown-up?"

I haven't told her yet that she sounds kind of odd when she says things like that. Sometimes you just want them to keep saying the cute wrong things.

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Speaking of Rachel and movies, though. . . . Rachel has a great memory, especially for random, obscure things that she's seen in movies way in the past. For example, I think she saw the movie "Napoleon Dynamite" maybe 8 months ago or so. Anway, I generally don't get too fancy with her hair, but the other day I did it in a side ponytail just for fun (I was laughing as I did it, because I remember being young and begging my mom to do my hair in a side ponytail because it was just so cool, and then being frustrated that she wasn't getting it far enough on the side of my head). So, when I was finished with her hair, Rachel went to look at the final product in the mirror. She got kind of an unsure look on her face, and then said, "Mom? I look just like Napoleon's girlfriend." I'm not sure if she was pleased with the idea. There have been no more requests for side ponytails.