We've determined that Kadin is about 99.87% fearless. He does however have one terror that is quite intense; Gollum.
This past week I picked up a copy of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. As Tonia had not yet seen that one and was also a bit rusty on the first two LOTR installments, she watched the first two movies during the week. Our plans were to watch Return of the King on Friday night once she was all caught up.
While a good portion of the movie viewing was done during Kadin's nap times, there were times while he was present and taking in the excitement himself.
I didn't fully believe that he could be that scared. From what Tonia described (I didn't witness the first few instances) he sobbed long and hard within seconds of seeing/hearing Gollum on the screen.
Fortunately, Kadin loves music. Generally no matter what has him crying, putting on MuchMusic or MTV will calm him down within seconds.
So it's a bit of twisted irony that one time when Tonia used our little trick, the MTV Movie awards were on and, of all people, Andy Serkis (the voice of Gollum) was presenting an award when Gollum came on stage and did a bit with him. Good times!
So on Friday night we're watching Return of the King, bringing the volume down to 1 and singing very loudly whenever Gollum appeared or spoke. Sometimes it worked unless it was a close-up of Gollum, in which case all bets were off.
As I write this I realize we sound like cruel and unusual parents, because I just so happened to rent the Xbox Return of the King video game. The game closely follows the movie, so playing it while Kadin is around has been something of a challenge.
The system we've worked out is that if Gollum is on screen, I jump between Kadin & the TV (controller still in hand), Tonia turns the volume down and we both start singing really really loudly.
It's just a mystery to us why he's so scared. I mean, if he can stand my singing, Gollum's raspy voice should NOT phase him.
I guess it's all about balance though. On one end, a fictional computer generated character scares him. On the other, he played with the plastic mold from a Turtles box from 6-8 AM while I lay in a coma on the couch, and LOVED it.
Posted by Hasan at May 30, 2004 08:20 PM