I haven’t mentioned much about Andrew’s all-consuming obsession – Godzilla. Back in April, Terry brought over a boxed set of five monster DVDs. Since that time, my young son has been able to think of little else. He wakes up, crawls into bed, and sleepily says, “Good morning, Mommy Mothra.” As he falls alseep at night, it’s hard to get him to stop talking about, “What if the laavee sprayed Godzilla with webby stuff and then Godzilla went into the ocean?”
The names of these crazy monsters flow off his tongue as easily as the names of family members. Kumunga. Mothra. Manilla. Gamera. Rodan. Mechagodzilla. Manda. The “laavee” (Mothra larvae). Gorosaurus. He spends a lot of time considering who would be which monsters. “If I was Godzilla, Sylvie would be Rodan, you could be Mothra, Daddy would be Gamera…”
We watch at least one of these movies every day. In fact, Terry just added a new DVD (Destroy All Monsters) to the mix, which Andrew is watching right now. What a crazy thing!
Andrew has developed a bit of a secret body language to show how he feels about the ending of different movies. He apparently doesn’t like it when Godzilla wins. When the other guys win at the end (like the Montra larvae), Andrew blinks his eyes to show that he his pleased. However, if Godzilla wins at the end (like in Mechagodzilla), he’s unhappy and conveys his displeasure by crossing his arms and frowning. He’s spent quite some time explaining this system to me, Bryan, and anyone else who will listen.
In general, I’ve set up deal with Andrew that I don’t watch the monster movies with him. They are something that he watches with Dad or someone else at the end of the day. Andrew has determined that “Mommy isn’t a fan of Godzilla.” However, “Daddy, Terry, and Uncle Bubba are fans of Godzilla. So boys must like Godzilla and girls don’t. Except for teeny tiny girls like Sylvia. She likes Godzilla.”
I’ve had some mild concern about exposing my little boy to a sometimes violent monster movie (I mean they are regularly destroying Tokyo, a few people plummet to their death, there’s ample use of rockets, in one movie, the small boy gets kidnapped), but he seems as imaginative and as sensitive as ever. And he loves it!
Plus, there’s this photo. It’s not of Andrew…it’s Bryan. A love of Godzilla seems to run in the family.
Bryan was talking to his dad the other day and told him that he was going to spend the evening watching Godzilla with Andrew. “You’re so lucky,” Bryan’s dad replied. “There’s nothing like getting to watch a monster moive with your best buddy.”
I’m glad that our little guy gets to discover some of the fun things in this world. Upon looking online, I’ve learned that there are lots more Godzilla moives out there. My boy’s thirst for Godzilla and all things monster could be satisified for quite some time!