Pardon me

Pardon me while I peel myself up off the floor. At the moment I own the same emotional state as a bowl of raspberry Jello. The kids and I are chilling our blazing hot-and-yet-unused-to-what-is-typical-California-summer-weather-tootsies inside our air-conditioned cave after seeing Toy Story 3 this afternoon. My heart is surprisingly heavy. Heavy in the good way, of course, but the same way that it falls into your shoes and you get goosebumps on your neck during the father/daughter dance at a wedding or the day your baby forever stops calling you "Bob" because he can suddenly pronounce "Mom."

I knew going into it that I'd love it. Pixar plus Disney equals magic, natch. I knew I'd get a little throat-lumpy over some moment as I usually do at almost any film from either of those two (remember Tarzan's "You'll be in my heart" scene, anyone? Or the wife losing the baby in Up?) but for the love of cowboys, I wasn't expecting to start crying at the animated "home movies" of Andy in the opening sequence and keep crying right through the drama of the climax and the final scene. And side note if you've seen it: before the little alien guys came through in a big way during that scene, I seriously had no idea how it was going to end. For a minute, I thought I was watching Titanic: Toy Version and everyone was going down so we could learn a lesson about letting go. Holy Sad, Batman. Holy crying quietly in my seat, surrounded by popcorn-munching children. Squoosh! Melt! Ooze! (That's my best attempt at situation-appropriate Batman-esque onomatopoeia.)

As credits rolled, Roo asked me if we could buy it. Uh, yeah. I'm buyin' it. I think I already bought it, hook line and sinker. I'm okay with that. I think I've said this before, but I'm okay with buying into something that makes people feel the way those movies do. My kids love them now and are going to watch these movies as teens and appreciate them differently. And someday they'll watch them as parents and quietly cry a little into the hair of their young children, content as I was to have their emotions so aptly depicted and moved by a children's film.