emergent journey

This morning I woke up at 7:00am as I always do to my extremely expensive alarm clock known as Noah. He came in and said that Jude was awake and so we all got up. Malora had a rough sleep last night so we let mommy sleep in and the boys decided to watch a movie.

We decided to watch Toy Story 3 because Noah watched it at a birthday party yesterday and is no longer afraid of Toy Story. So we cuddled on the couch and watched the movie together as Mulhern men. I am a huge Pixar fan and was really excited to watch the last Toy Story.

By the end of the movie, I was crying and laughing and crying some more. It was a really touching story about friendship and the loss of childhood. There are a lot of kids movies out with similar themes of abandonment or something becoming out dated or unloved: BOLT, G-Force, Wall-E, UP. But the Toy Story trilogy captures the loss of childhood better then any story I have seen (other then the Velveteen Rabbit).

It is so sad to see Andy grown up and heading to college, leaving all of his closest friends behind. There is a scene where he has his car packed and he is heading off to college and Woody watches him drive off. It brought me to tears because I was holding my son who is still young enough to have his childhood wonder and I don’t want him to ever loose it. I know he will grow up one day and drive off to college leaving his slinky and spiderman behind but I want to cherish the moments until then.

Childhood disappears so quickly and youth today are more and more eager to grow up at a younger age. We need to be adults who help children cherish the moments of being children. Playing with a dollar store toy they get from a birthday goodie bag. Building space ships out of Lego. Splashing in the bath tub. Because it fades away and we can never get it back.

If you have kids, watch this movie with them. Laugh, cry, eat popcorn and enjoy each other. If you don’t have kids, sleep in until noon on a saturday and then watch this movie.