un-movie night

It's happening again, right now.

A week ago I found an old VHS of Chitty-Chitty Bang Bang in a thrift store, remembered enjoying it as a child, and brought it home to show to my children.

They still haven't seen it.  Each afternoon or evening that would have been just right for a movie night - it was cold and grey, or we'd been home for "x" days in a row - I've thought of hauling out the TV (which we keep on a high shelf) and VCR (which we keep in a closet) and lining up the children on the sofa to watch a slice of my childhood ... but I don't do it.

I hate to disturb them.

It's dark outside; we've eaten our supper and are planted in the living room where the fire burns hottest.  Spice is curled up on the sofa reading a Dr. Seuss biography from the library.  Sugar plays Colorku, a beautiful wooden version of Sudoku using colored balls.  Lil' Snip is building Lego tractors under the direction of Nice (who is living up to her name instead of plaguing her brother for the pleasure of hearing him squeal).

And I just can't make myself break up all the coziness, an almost palpable sense of "we are us; we are family; we belong here together."

So the videos I bring home gather dust on the shelf, and the children ask from time to time when we're going to watch them, but they never seem to remember to ask when we could watch them .... so we don't.

And no one seems to mind.

And Sugar learns new songs on the piano,
and Lil' Snip builds a million Lego towers,
and Spice makes music on her recorder,
and Nice sings songs she made up in her head,
and Sugar teaches herself new crochet stitches from a library book,
and Nice reads the Little House series,
and Spice teaches "school" to her siblings,
and Lil' Snip drives his trucks
and the girls dress up in ballet leotards and dance "The Waking of the Spring Flowers"
and it's all too lovely to interrupt for a mere movie ...


[for more thoughts on the TV-less life, check out this blog]