"Mama, I watched Tannnnnnnnnngled."

A little over a month ago, Carina's class watched about 30 minutes of Tangled. She made sure we didn't forget that she had seen it, too. It was as if she was working on her in-born, but well cultivated female ability to drop subtle-but-not-so-subtle hints. As in: I watched it once. I want to watch it again. HINT HINT. 

She not-so-slyly dropped the hint...

While driving along just about everyday, singing "Old MacDonald", talking about cows and hay, or feigning her fear of trees ("Ahhhh, trees!"), she blurted out "Mama/ Dada (depending on who was chauffeuring her to or from school), I watch Tannnnnnnnngled." Since I can be pretty animated and excitable, I got pretty good at egging her on: "YOUUUUUU DIIIIIIID?! Did you like it?" "Mmmhmmm." "What does Tangled do, Carina?" "She puts her hair UP!" "What color is her hair, Carina?" "It's lellow." This conversation repeated itself at least three times per week, and sometimes at least 3 times in one day without any recognizable trigger to set her off on her schpeel about it. That was the funniest part about it.

It was sweet and endearing and exciting for Jared and me to see her so excited about something, anything other than Bee Movie, Kung Fu Panda, (Elmo is a "has been" these days unless we're reading Elmo's Big Enough for A Big Bed book...), and The Big Bird Movie. While we love all of those movies, Carina you are by far their biggest fan.

So as any good, wanting-to-encourage-their-child's-interest parents would do, we determined to buy Tangled for Carina within the month and surprise her with it. Oh, we were soooo excited to do it, too!
Jared was off on a Friday 2 weeks ago and had to run errands at The BIIIIG Store (Wal-Mart according to Carina), so he picked it up, brought it home, opened it like a book and stood it up on the entertainment stand RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE TV so she'd be sure to see it when she would predictably request to watch one of her current favorite movies upon arriving home from school.

WRONG. She breezed right past it into her room to play with puzzles. PUZZLES?! She remembered she had puzzles one of the few times we actually wanted her to notice the TV. Of course she did.
So, when she came out from playing with puzzles, oh about 5 minutes later: just long enough to scatter 2 or 3 whole ones on the floor in her room, we made a concerted effort to get her to slow down in front of the TV by saying, "Carina what's that? What's that on the TV table?" She turned, stared at the Tangled box, and turned around to look at us with the blankest blank look on her face. Her face said,"Could it be? No it couldn't be. All my dreams in the past month (probably), the content of my random interjections into conversation, could it really be true!?" She looked at it again, Jared said,"Carina what's that? Is that...."
"TANNNNNNNNNNNGLED!!!!!! I watch Tannnnnnnngled, Dada and Mama! Pleeeease?!" She ran over to give us big hugs and kisses and then we all settled in on the couch to watch this long awaited and much-hyped by Carina movie.

We all got comfy together, Jared queued up the XBOX and we settled in to watch it. All was going just fine, peachy really, everyone was happy and smiley, that little Tangled baby is just adorable, yadda yadda yadda.
Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnn enter "SCARY LADY" who I'm pretty sure the teachers at school knowingly fast forwarded over because, dang, was she scary looking. Scary to a 2 year old. Maybe not to your 5 year old or even to a toddler of the same age range who might not be so aware of the dramatic music and attuned to facial expressions. Carina started screeeeaming, shaking, practically convulsing with pure fear and crying to beat all we had ever seen from her. That ended Tangled. Suddenly. After consoling and explaining that the SCARY LADY had gone "bye bye far far away" infinity times, Carina decided to watch Big Bird Movie. "Big Bird no SCARY LADY, Mama". Tannnnnnnnngled has been shelved for a year or more so Carina can adjust or until she decides she wants to watch it. No pressure there. I remember being scared of Ursula from The Little Mermaid, Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty, and The Queen from Snow White.

Tangled is now one of mine and Jared's favorite movies. No, not to put on as punishment to get Carina to leave the room, but we seriously watched it over the course of 2 nights and just totally love it. Especially that horse, Maximus. He MAKES the movie. Sure, sure, "shouldn't Rapunzel make the movie?" Short answer: Yes and No. Just watch it, you'll understand.

Lesson learned: preview ALL movies. Especially PG ones. Jeez. We didn't even notice the PG box on the box. You need a magnifying glass to see it! We just assumed and everyone knows what happens when you ASSUME...and boy did we.