Kiddie Classics

Those lovely movies, songs I watched and heard as I grew up.....I am reliving those days through my kids. In fact, I seem to be more fascinated and glued to the TV when the kids have wandered off after an hour or so into the movie. Or they just enjoy the songs (most often, choosing songs from the DVD Menu) and carry on!

Pretty Mary Poppins perched on the clouds with her open umbrella that has a talking parrot for a holder. The cute little dancing penguins and the wandering horse from the carousel, the adorable Bert and his blackened face after the cleaning of the Chim Chimney Chim Chimney Chim Chim Cheroo. Love the toy cleaning sessions, A spoonful of sugar and how she leaves the children when they find happiness in the company of their parents. My kids thoroughly enjoy the movie and the songs, especially the floating professor’s I love to laugh and Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious....

The hilarious and lovable Mr Potts, with Someone to care for, to be there for;  he has his two children. They love his unique inventions – Breakfast maker with a chugging train in the kitchen, toot sweet maker, carpet cleaner, the race car converted into a flying and sailing one. The kids’ new friend, Truly Scrumptious, and their trips to the beach and to the palace of the child hating queen of Bulgaria, in their Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. What an amazing movie (story by Roald Dahl); makes you want to dream again and makes you want to go back to being a child again....

My fancy for the English language and its many beautiful nuances started off with Henry Higgins trying to convert Eliza Doolittle from a flower-girl to what he could call My Fair Lady. I still love it when he sings, Why can’t the English teach their children how to speak or Why can’t a woman be like me?; and when she sings Just you wait Henry Higgins and The rain in Spain; and of course Mr Doolittle singing his cheerful I’m getting married in the morning. I have replaced atleast 6 cassettes, 3 CD’s of this soundtrack, that’s how much I love them. My kids don’t enjoy the movie as much as the songs, since there are no children in the movie.

The hills are alive with the Sound of Music......I get goose bumps even today when I see the camera rising over the hills of Salzburg in the opening shot of the movie. My love for music today owes a lot to the memory of enjoying this movie in my childhood. I can see that my kids love it too. They are humming Do re mi and High on the hills.... all the time even when their hands are running cars and trains on the floor.

I encourage watching these movies now and then, since they have purely positive effects on children, and they offer a lot of energy and promise. But the kids today are far smarter than I remember myself being when I was a kid. Across all these movies, the few things that my 6 yr old seems to have understood clearly....

Mothers shout at kids, but Nannies don’t; Kids have a good time when their mothers are not around; The didi who spends more time at home is their Nanny; and if Mamma wants to ever go away, Daddy will marry the Didi, and they will all live happily ever after!!!