Movie Milestone

I got to experience the magic that is “The Wizard of Oz” with my kids last Friday night. Rory’s room is decorated with Wizard of Oz stuff, we’ve read the book many times, and we sing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” all the time (it’s our mother/daughter song). She knows who Dorothy is because she’s all over her room, but she still hasn’t seen the movie. Some may think both kids are too young. I’m actually the person responsible for poor little Johanna Show’s nightmares from a few years back. I let her watch it at my house eons ago and she didn’t sleep for weeks. Oops! But I’ve found that my kids don’t scare easily. They’ve seen their share of witches because of Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid, Snow White, and so on, so I knew the Wicked Witch of the West (who is, in my opinion, the most authentic witch ever portrayed in film history) wouldn’t be a problem. Mark had reservations about the flying monkeys, but when they showed up, the only response from the kids was an excited exclamation of “MONKEYS!!!” I’m telling you, our kids don’t get scared of stuff on tv. I think I watched my kids’ faces through half the movie. Rory took it all in stride and there were parts that kept her attention better than others—she is still two, after all. Jake was mesmerized the whole time because he’s a movie freak like me. So even though this movie is ancient (released in 1939, an amazing movie year which also produced the perfect “Gone With the Wind”), and my kids are watching crazy technology daily, I knew they would love this classic that has been near and dear to my heart for as long as I can remember.