Common Room Conversation

FYB: Mommy, how dark will the theater be? Really dark, or only a little dark?

Mommy: It will be just as dark as it was last year when you saw two movies there.

FYB: Well, The Incredibles was only kind of dark, but Polar Express was very, very dark [it was the same theater and lighting but Polar Express frightened him more]. And I want to know which kind of dark the lights will be.

Mommy: I don't know, but you can sit between Daddy and I if that makes you feel better.

FYB (laughing): That's exactly what I am going to do.

Mommy: And you can always close your eyes, you know. You don't have to watch.

FYB: And Daddy could cover my eyes, too. Except he doesn't do it right. He leaves great big clumps of open spaces between his fingers and then it's still scary, because I can see. I have to keep pulling his hands to try to close those clumps.

Mommy (covering his eyes): Do I do it right?

FYB: Yes, you do, so you can help me cover my eyes if I need you to, and that will be better.

Mommy: You don't have to use hands, either, you know. You can put your face down, or hide your face in daddy's chest.

FYB: Or turn around and look behind me. But I don't like that.
I think I'll be okay, but you know, there are some things that look okay on the computer screen that I think might be very scary on the big screen.

Mommy, (with some trepidation offers herself upon the sacrficial alter than is motherhood): You don't have to go, you know. You and I can stay home.

FYB (bending his head and looking at me from beneath his eyebrows in a certain grown up and serious expression he has that just makes my heart go all flip floppy and sticky and warm): Mother! Of course I want to go. I might jump in my seat and cover my ears, but I want to go.