Monster House and Gremlins

So today Z did something that I am really proud of. She went into the kitchen to throw something away and saw that there was no bag in the trash bin (the bag was sitting by the door waiting to go out) so she got a new trash bag and put it in the bin.

I was really impressed. Usually Z would have called "Mommy! There is no bag in the trash bin!" and I would have gone and put a new one in, not even thinking to ask her to do that.

I told her I was proud of her.

Then she told me that she also tried to make a swimming pool for fairies in her room and ended up spilling a lot of water on the carpet (LOL) and that she had cleaned that up all by herself too.

Today we had a pretty low key day. Z and Pere built with LEGOs, Z worked on her fairy houses some more, she practiced Poor Unfortunate Souls (from Little Mermaid) on the piano, and she went swimming for awhile.

We also walked to the theatre (it was only 98 degrees outside today) and saw Monster House. It was very funny and the animation was a joy to see in and of itself.

It got me thinking out some of my favorite kid movies - movies I loved when I was a kid and movies that I saw as an adult but would have loved.

So far I have

Goonies
The Neverending Story
The Dark Crystal
Willow
E.T.
The Secret of Nimh
Mary Poppins
Willy Wonka
The Animalympics
The Hobbit
Toy Story
The Iron Giant
The Princess Bride (this one is almost too mature to be considered a kid movie and I don't want to just make a list of every movie I loved as a kid - like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Back to the Future, etc)

Monster House was not as good as any of those movies. My yardstick for recent computer animated movies are Toy Story and Shrek. But it was fun. It was dark and scary in a fun way. It reminded me of Gremlins. I saw that when it came out in the theatre, the summer I turned 11, I really loved it and begged my father to buy me a Mogwai.

So we decided to rent Gremlins and we watched it with Z tonight. Now she really wants a Mogwai. She promises not to feed them after midnight though!

This was actually a big movie weekend. We also went to see Lady in the Water, the new Shyamalan moviem Friday night. It was very good. I don't know what the critics are talking about. It was funny, and very interesting, and even made me cry - more than once. And there were a few good jump out and scare ya bits too!

We let Z watch it. I thought I would make her go to sleep during the film, especially if it got too scary but it never did. Z cried at the end because she didn't want it to end that way, even though it was the right ending. She really liked it to.

I wonder what movies are going to be her favorite childhood movies?