Mary Poppins vs. Spiderwick

Emily is a huge Mary Poppins fan. Every Friday night it would be the movie that she would always want to watch for movie night. I asked her once why it was her favorite. She said "because there are no bad guys". Sweet Emily was able to meet her idol this past summer at Disneyland. She was even her for Halloween two years ago (Carlie is the rabbit coming out of a hat).

So about a month ago we had a half day of school and a group of friends decided they'd take their kiddos to see Spiderwick. I declined and reminded them that my kids are wussypants. After hearing that another friend of theirs had gone and liked it I decided to offer it up to the girls.

I had just bought some "Saturday Cereal" with an advertisement for Spiderwick and a free book inside. I showed it to the girls making sure they understood that the scary little creature on the box would be in the movie. I read them a brief synopsis of the story. I left out that their friends were going (didn't want to taint their judgment).

They said that they wanted to see it and so I called my friends and we were off. The kids took up one row and the moms were sitting a few rows back. I knelt down and told the girls where I would be sitting. I was careful not to say "now if you get scared" or "don't worry Mommy will be right there". And honestly that is one of my pet peaves too, when parents set up their kids to be scared or worried. I go sit and the movie starts.

About five minutes into the movie a boy is being carried away by goblins (fairly nasty little things) and put in a cage. I see a blur moving quickly up the isle. It is Emily, shaking and almost crying. She looks up at me and says "Mommy, I don't like this movie, I just want to go home". I picked her up in my lap (good thing she is still under 45 lbs.) and started talking her through the movie. I pointed out that a creature didn't have any clothes on and had a hairy bum. When she had calmed down I asked her to sit with my friend so I could go check on Carlie. Carlie is generally the braver of the two but when I walked up to her she had her knees pulled up to her chin and fingers in her mouth. I asked her "hey, are you ok?" She said "NO, this movie is scary!". So I watched the movie with two little lap warmers. Some moms might have taken their kiddos home but not me! I wanted them to see the movie resolve itself (which thankfully it did). It showed that good will prevail over bad. I'm also cheap!

I really liked Spiderwick and wish Ryan could have seen it. If your kiddos aren't wussypants like mine and can handle movies like Harry Potter-they'll love it.

Here is a cool site to a writing activity and pictures of some of the creatures.
http://www.spiderwick.com/_media/downloads/spiderwick_writingActivities.pdf