Carroll Family Blog: Potter Mania

Sorry for the long absence- but rather than try to catch up (which is kind of a joke at this point) I figured I would just jump right in like I have not been absent for the last 6 months.

Much to Tim's dismay, my boys have been really in to Harry Potter lately. But before I get into that, here is a bit of a back story that some of you may have already heard, but I wanted to jot it down for posterity's sake. I have been a really big Harry Potter fan ever since Tim and I got married. I have no shame in admitting it- there is just something about the books and movies that are very comforting to me. Perhaps they satisfy some inner nerdy need in me, but I could read or watch Harry Potter over and over again. Anyways, when Jace was a baby, the first three movies were out and being a new mom with just one child, I had a lot of free time on my hands so little Jace and I would watch those movies a lot. I never thought it was a big deal- after all they are kid movies, right? Well, one day when Jace was just 2 1/2, we were at the library here in Virginia at the check out counter and suddenly Jace looks up at me and says "Kill my parents." I looked down at him in total shock and embarrassment, only to hear him say it again. Why would my 2 year old say something like this, I wondered? Has my child been possessed by a demon? Where would he learn something so horrible?! And then it hit me- Drat, Harry Potter! Of all the sentences he could have taken out of context, he had to pick up on that one! So that was the end of me and young Jace's Harry Potter bonding.

Well now that Jace is at the ripe old age of 7, we have been reading HP together over the last several months. We are on book 5 right now, and even Ethan has caught on to the excitement. Ethan, who is very imaginative in the first place, has been walking around shouting out spells and brandishing whatever item he has imagined into a wand. And calling me Hermione. Yesterday, I made him these glasses out of pipe cleaners and you should have see the light in his eyes come on when he put these fuzzy specs on- you could just see that in his mind he really was Harry with these glasses on! Too cute. And naturally when Jace saw them, he had to make a pair as well. I will try to get a photo up of him in his specs too, or I know he will be jealous.

BTW, when I said much to Tim's dismay, he doesn't seriously have anything against Harry Potter, he just has a slight fear of our boys turning into the type of kids that play dungeons and dragons and as teenagers wear eye liner and black skinny jeans all the time. I think he thinks that Harry Potter could be a stepping stone to a full blown dragon warrior. But I just have to remind him that Dragons are COOL!!