~ Hiccup ~

My Critter love love LOVES the movie How To Train Your Dragon.  I have to admit, I’m pretty enamored with it, myself.  If you haven’t seen it, go, right now, to Netflix, or the library, or wherever, and get it!!  It’s totally worth it.

He can recite nearly every line.  Actually, he AND Varmint can do it together.  They take turns being different characters.  It’s pretty dagnab funny to see them slide into character, and they can, and do, recite it anywhere.  Sitting at the dinner table.  In the car.  At the Doctors office. On the toilet.

I’m fairly sure we could spin them into a profit somehow.  If only Children’s Services weren’t such sticklers.

There is one line of the movie that Critter loves the most.  At least, he says it constantly, and cracks himself up so hard he can barely finish it, so I guess he loves it.

(And I hope the makers of the movie will forgive me if I butcher this…)

The village leader’s son, Hiccup, who is forever getting into scrapes that effect the whole village, has just managed to wreak havoc – yet again- on the village during a dragon raid, and has been sent back to his hut in shame.  He is being ‘escorted’ by the second in command, and blacksmith of the village, Gobber, who is trying to make Hiccup feel better for being so severely reprimanded – yet again – by his very disappointed father.

Hiccup, yelling: “He never listens!”

Gobber, dryly: “It runs in the family.”

Hiccup: “Whenever he looks at me, it’s with a disappointed scowl on is face, like someone skimped on the meat in his sandwich”. (takes on his father’s Scottish brogue) “Excuse me, Barmaid, it appears you brought me the wrong offspring!  I ordered an extra-large boy with big beefy arms with guts and glory on the side.  This here….this is a talking fishbone!”

Gobber, consolingly: “Now see here, you’re looking at this all wrong. It’s not the outside of you that bothers him, its what’s on the inside he can’t stand.”

Hiccup, deadpan: “Thanks for clearing that up for me.”

Now, it’s cute as heck in the movie.  But somehow it gains so much more when watching my very animated little boy do it…with perfect Scottish Brogue and inflection…while cracking up.  It cracks me up, as well as everyone else who is watching him.  It’s infectious as hell.

And then when Varmint gets into it with him… I laugh so hard, I have to hold my belly.  (…partially because of my hernia, and partially ’cause at my weight, when that thing gets a jigglin’, its momentum can be downright dangerous. I don’t like to take chances. Remember, safety never takes a holiday.)

A funny thing about kids:  They are never as cute to other people as they are to their own parents.  My brother Graham once told me, when he came to meet Varmint for the first time, that when his kids were younger he thought they were truly miraculous.  Amazing.  Exceptional.  And then as they got older, he realized that much of what he was seeing was his own love for them.  And that really, they were just regular people.  Like you and me.

So I guess I love the snot out of my kids, because I think they are outstanding.  One way or the other, that is.  Actually, they constantly vacillate between taking my breath away, and pissing me off.

Maybe Graham was right, and they are just normal, everyday kids.  Maybe he is on to something to suppose that it’s our love for them, or the love they create, that makes them so exceptional.

Or maybe mine really are superhumanly amazing.

(His are, too.  Andrew, Maggie, and Kerry,… you guys rock, and I love ya.)

(And I love you, too, Graham.)