The Dark side of the Dark Side

Anyone who knows our four-year-old at all knows he's fanatical when it comes to Star Wars. At his first talent show he sang the Death March (here's the link) and he was Darth Vader for Halloween (yes, the costume was homemade). The bulk of the day consists of building lego Star Wars ships, fencing with light sabers, and of course watching Star Wars.

For a long time we held out letting him watch Episode III due to the violence and disturbing images. But with older siblings viewing it he did actually watch it one day. I rationalized that he was napping by the time Annikan was dragging his limbless, burning body up the lava bank following a duel with his Jedi master.

When he next wanted to watch it I rationalized that he'd already seen most of it so I gave him a reluctant green light. Then followed a period of watching it daily for a week or so. At this point we were outside riding bikes when I looked up to see young Padawan tearing down the sidewalk at full speed on his bike. He had a demonic look on his face and was yelling, "I HATE YOU! I HATE YOU!" Star Wars III was immediately yanked from his queue. Welcome back from the dark side, buddy.

Like the movie, this story has a sequel: Do you believe in Freudian slips? Blake was sorting through our movie collection when he found The Man with One Red Shoe, a NetFlix movie we had rented and supposedly returned. After wracking our brains to figure out what movie we, ok, I had actually sent back in its place we realized Star Wars III was missing. Apparently I unwittingly made sure he could no longer watch that movie. And now it's in someone else's queue.