03.07.10
A mom’s-eye view of the Oscars
Did you watch the Oscars?
I saw about fifteen minutes of them. I came home from a jog this evening and my husband had the TV on, so I caught a small snippet before dinner. Sadly, it was the section where they award all the prizes for Short Feature (otherwise known as Best Random Filmette that No One Watching At Home Has Seen) … in other words, not the highlight of Oscardom, from my [admittedly limited] perspective. But whatever. I got to see two young acresses whom I don’t know (Carey Mulligan and Zoe someone?) present the award and I got to marvel at their outrageous dresses, which is really the whole point of the Oscars, isn’t it? This is especially true when you, like me, see one movie a year. Once upon a time, I used to see nearly all of the Best Picture nominees. What changed? Oh, right; I had kids.
Speaking of which, it hit home to me just how much we have to control our TV-viewing now that Matthew is at the very impressionable age of three. At one point, the Oscars happened to show a clip of some movie with a large, warty, voracious-looking alien creature, and I instantly clicked the TV off. Alas, I was not quite so quick on the trigger when Ben Stiller came out, with blue skin and yellow eyes, made up to look like an Avatar character (or so I think. That did not happen to be the movie I saw last year.) Matthew stared at him, wide-eyed, and Scott and I instantly spun into damage control mode. “Ha Ha Ha! Look at him! He’s so FUNNY and SILLY!” Oh, man. Matthew is in a phase where many things are “scary.” Last night he got frightened by a crumpled piece of cardboard under the dresser in his room. If he comes wailing into our bedroom at 3 A.M., I’m sending him to Ben Stiller’s house.
But anyhow, it was still a fun fifteen minutes. And though I don’t savor the Oscars like I used to, I know that it won’t be long before this phase of parenting changes, and I’m able to see at least a few of the Best Picture nominees again. Heck, maybe I’ll be able to take the boys to some of them.
Nothing with crumpled cardboard, though.
