For the past week and a bit, my husband and I have been enjoying watching the Harry Potter movies with our 10-year-old. It's something I have looked forward to for a long time, sharing a film series I love with our youngest son. Admittedly we could have done it sooner, last year or even the year before if it wasn't for my parenting stance of "you can't watch it until you've read it".
Now he has read them, it's time to watch them, and it has been just as enjoyable as I had hoped. Long, contented evenings of snacks, cold drinks and plenty of gasps, laughs and more than a few tears (Dobby, Hedwig, Sirius ... they get me every time). Introducing my children to the books and films I love has been one of the highlights of parenting for me.
One of the lowlights, however, is also movie- based. Specifically, those featuring animated characters, plenty of annoying earworm songs, schmaltzy storylines and a large catalogue of movie-related plastic toys to be marketed at us for the next 18 months.
Don't get me wrong, it's not every animated movie I hate - the Toy Story series, Lion King, even Frozen - now Let it Go has finally stopped playing on what seemed like endless repeat from my daughter's bedroom - has its appeal, but generally speaking, I like my movies to feature real people, albeit ones who send mail by owl post and keep their cash in goblin-run banks.
So it would be fair to say I wasn't wildly excited when our youngest child asked me to take him to the movies recently. In fact, I did try the old "I have work" to do, followed by a dose of "how about we go to the bike park" and even an offer of "I can buy you some Lego instead" but no, he was adamant - so off to see Sing 2 we went.