Confidence in the Kitchen: Sharing Cooking Experiences with Your Preschool Child

Though not characteristic for our family, we went to see Wall-E on opening day, last Friday. Grandma was in town and it was hotter than Hades in our house. A cool place to hang out was beyond appealing. We piled into the car, turned on the air conditioner and headed for the new Hollywood Theatre on Interquest Parkway to see what all the fuss was about both in facility and film.

We arrived before seating time, but not before the serpentine line formed across the lobby. As such, we found ourselves seated in the front row. My protégée thought that was cool and the rest of us were just glad to be someplace chilly. After what I think was exactly one zillion previews, the film began. Wall-E, a robotic E.T., appeared amongst the largest piles of garbage ever imagined. Click here to watch the trailers.

You may have already heard, that 700 years after humans left earth due to inhabitability, an army of Wall-Es were tasked with cleaning up the mess which had been made of the earth.

 Our Wall-E is presumably the only one left as the story opens. Quite a while is spent getting to know Wall-E and his environment, quite a WORDLESS while. I was interested, pondering how things could have become this bad and listening to the sounds Wall-E made. My protégée was not as enthralled.

About twenty minutes into the film, the second main character arrives. EVE brings with her a sort of conversation in the interaction between the characters. She is a thoroughly contemporary contrast to Wall-E’s modern mechanical being. Without giving away anything, let me say that at this point my protégée became more interested, but not thoroughly interested. EVE’s arrival also results in all sorts of new and LOUD sounds which weren’t thrilling to my youngster. At this point she passed from lap to lap every few minutes.

Though the film isn’t what I’d consider terribly long at ninety-seven minutes, it was a bit too long for my four-year-old. She watched the action, but was asking to leave before the ending was carried out. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and think that a child of five or six could remain interested with some coaxing through the first twenty minutes with the aid of something delicious from the concession stand.  Overall I’d give the movie a big thumbs up.

By the way, the theatre was nice. I enjoyed being able to buy tickets on-line. The lobby was covered in popcorn and the hallway filled with boxes of cups. Being in the front row I wasn’t able to fully evaluate the all-digital picture. That being said, if in the neighborhood, I’d definitely see a movie there again.