Hannah and Ricky and the Little Baby Jesus

Just now, Shawn and I were flipping through channels, when I nonchalantly mentioned that sometimes when I'm up late at night, ummm, I come across Suite Life or Hannah Montana and think to myself, "Hmmm...should I watch?" Seriously. I'm tempted to turn the channel on and see what those rascals Zach and Cody are up to. And the fact that Ryan has outgrown them quicker than me? Yes, that one hurts. Admitting this to the world is what I imagine admitting a porn fetish must be like. At least I still have Hannah -- where would I be without my "Sweet Nibblet!"?

And then there's Jax. And Ricky Bobby. A week or two ago Ryan was spending the night out, so for our Family Movie Night, we popped in Talladega Nights -- relieved to be able to watch a Mom and Dad movie in the company of a child without consequence.

(Remember when we used to watch Sex and the City and The Sopranos when Ry was a baby? Ahh, those were the days, however long gone they are.)

But there we were, provided a rare opportunity to throw caution to the wind, so we did what every normal red-blooded parent would do and popped that bad boy in. Jax loved it, as we knew he would, what with his unnerving obsession with NASCAR and racing and all...plus, remember how much he LOVED "Buddy"? It's essentially Buddy's-Red-Neck-Cousin-Driving-Fast. What's not to like about that? There's a special place in Heaven for Will Ferrell, I tell you.

Anyway, since then, he's begged to watch it almost every day - in between viewings of "Thomas" - and usually I'm happy to oblige, especially now that he's all "R-R-R-icky Bobby this" and
"R-R-R-icky Bobby that" (Oh yeah, we're sooooo into the stuttering right now. It's verging on painful.)

But this afternoon, Ryan was standing there when he asked to watch it and she quickly chimed in that she, too, would like to watch the movie.

"Yeah, that's not gonna happen for a while, kid," I answered.

"What do you mean? He's watched it like a billion times!"

"Yes, but he's 2, and you're 5."

"Mom, that doesn't actually totally make sense, you know."

"Sure it does. He only watches the race cars and has no idea what else is going on for the rest of the movie. You, on the other hand, would understand too much."

"Like what?"

"Don't worry about it," I say, walking away and thinking to myself, "I PISS excellence..."