Coolness... It Runs In The Family

I have been waiting YEARS, dear readers and loyal subjects!  YEARS, I tell you, in order to introduce my progeny... those three little girls of mine... to truly great works of literature and film.  It's hard to know just when to do it, though.  You have to balance the content with their ages and maturity level.  You have to get a sense of what they're ready to understand.  But more importantly, you have to gage just exactly how cool these kids are before you show them the good stuff!  I am happy to say that after a rocky start, my kids... *sniff sniff wipe a tear*... are the coolest!!!

You know that you all wonder it at some point, "Will my children be cool enough to "get" how fantabulous this book/movie/work of art is?"  Will they understand why we love it?  Or, horror of horrors, will they stare blankly at it and then tell us as parents that we are uncool.  You know that's the statement you live in fear of.  And though I know my kids are still very young, 9, 7, and 6, I recently decided that I was willing to risk it and read them one of my favorite books then show them the movie based on that book.  There was a sense of nervousness, but I went through with it!  And so at bedtime for about a month I read my children William Goldman's The Princess Bride.  I figured how bad could it be?

Now what I need to admit here is that the movie version of The Princess Bride is one of my all time favorite movies.  It's one of those movies that you really can't watch too many times.  It's ALWAYS funny, and there are ALWAYS quotes you can use on any number of occasions, and if you can actually speak the lines along with the characters... well that's just a bonus.  And let's just say that I could play just about any role in this film from memory at any given time.  That said, I'd never really read the book.  I knew it went fairly well with the movie since the screenplay was by the same author but I wasn't completely sure how well it was going to go over.  And let's face it, my little heart was going to be broken if my daughters didn't get how hysterically funny and wonderful this story was.  So with that in mind I set about reading it to them.  And I will now say that in general, it was probably too early to have tried this one, at least for my youngest.  She was bored.  I was devastated but I soldiered on.  We made it through and the older two thought it was okay but what helped was that I promised to show them the movie when we finished with it.  And a movie is something they understand much better than what really is a very long book for that age.  So tonight was the night.  It was family movie night with The Princess Bride.  And how did it go, you ask?  AWESOME!!!

That's right!  My kids were hooked right away.  They recognized a lot of the people from the story and did complain that that's not what they thought these characters would look like.  I think I should have expected that, but even the little one was entranced.  They ate it up!  They laughed at the right places! They cheered for Buttercup and Wesley!  They loved Fezzik and Inigo!  They made me stop to explain that an albino was NOT some kind of exotic animal!  And what's more, their favorite part was the part that made me laugh hardest when I first saw it too.  Yes, my children finished watching the movie and then looked right at me and yelled "MAWWAGE!" and then "WUV... TWU WUV!"

(If neither of those statements make sense to you, I'm going to guess that you haven't seen the movie.  That will be a $10 fine, and you MUST go straight out to get a copy to watch.  You'll thank me.  Even my kids did!)  They spent time pretending to sword fight. They talked about each of the characters.  They were happy. They were laughing. They were cool as hell!  I knew it! I knew it! I knew it!  There's no WAY I could produce children who didn't have a great sense of humor.  I simply refuse to consider the possibility.

And do you want to know what the best part of this is?  When someone asks my kids what they did on their summer break, my children can break out their best Princess Bride quotes and impressions and just impress the hell out of any teacher that even dared to ask.  I think that earns me a great big gold star for my forehead!  Because my kids are cool... and that makes me cooler by association.  It's been good night!

UPDATE:
It's been a few days but my friend Melanie has sent me something directly related to this post so I just had to update it.

And when that woman is right... she's right!  I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.