Written by Anyone who knows my husband knows that he is arguably one of the biggest Star Wars fans out there. He likes to say that he is a couple of steps below the crazies. I mean, he has never dressed up like one of the characters to go to any of the conventions. He didn’t try to name our child after any of the characters (though we did call her “Boba” for the first three months of my pregnancy before we knew the sex or had a name picked out). Hell, he didn’t even bring a replica lightsaber along to the movie theater when Episodes 1, 2 and 3 were released.
He did, however, buy tickets and stand in line to get a good seat at the midnight showings, and then take the entire day off work the next day so he could see the movies five times in a row.
In. A. Row.
In all, Steven saw The Phantom Menace 11 times in the theater. If you’re doing the math, that amounts to roughly $250 in tickets and movie theater snacks. George Lucas, if you’re reading this, Steven still says it was worth it, and you’re welcome.
Steven also owns a wide variety of Star Wars toys, comic books, magazines, books, t-shirts, a replica Boba Fett mask, a Star Wars monopoly game, video games, posters, and even a life-size R2-D2 cooler that he won as a raffle prize in college. All he had to do was buy dinner for half of the students on the Concordia College – New York campus in order to claim their raffle tickets and stack the odds in his favor.
Yeah, some days the line between my husband and those crazy Star Wars fanatics is a little blurry, but that has always been part of his charm.
Long before our daughter was born, Steven dreamed of the day that he could pass along his love of Star Wars to his children. He practiced with his nephews T.J. and Tyler, watching the movies with them at Gamma and Pop-Pop’s house when they boys were babies. At this point, Cadence has yet to officially sit down to watch any of the films with her Daddy. He has been waiting for the new Blu-ray discs, wanting to make sure that Cadence is able to experience the 6-part series in all its glory. With the Blu-ray release finally in sight and our daughter hitting a point in her toddlerhood where she is actually interested in sitting down and watching movies (though still not for extremely long stretches of time), Steven is getting pretty anxious for their Daddy-Daughter Movie Date.
But Houston, we have a problem.
A big problem.
Tonight as we were finishing up dinner, we turned on the season premier of How I Met Your Mother. During one of the commercial breaks, we stopped to watch what was probably the best commercial from the last Superbowl–this spot for the Volkswagon Passat…
Of course, my Star Wars-loving husband thought this was one of the best commercials he had ever seen, and most of our friends and family who saw it joked that the child in the commercial could very well be Steven’s child. We laughed and actually thought so to0, right up until tonight when the commercial came on and Cadence took one look at the miniature Darth Vader, gasped, turned red and started sobbing uncontrollably.
Steven and I started at each other for a minute, completely shocked by our daughter’s reaction. Cadence looked back at the screen, screamed, sobbed even louder, and started trying to climb and claw her way out of her high chair and into my lap. It took both Steven and I to hold her still long enough to get her released from the chair, and by the time I gathered her up into my arms she was sweating and crying and shaking with fear.
I couldn’t even believe what I was seeing. Our little girl who laughs at crazy thunder and lightning storms and wants to go out and stand in the rain to watch the show, our little girl who loved watching Gremlins, Falling Skies, and The Walking Dead with her Daddy and I, making scary monster growling noises whenever she sees a zombie or a monster or an alien on TV is suddenly afraid of a little kid dressed as Darth Vader in a car commercial.
Go figure.
Long after the commercial ended, Cadence kept her face buried in my chest, turning her head ever so slightly to steal a glance at the TV as if to make sure the scary guy was gone. Steven and I just looked at each other, completely bewildered. I half-expected Steven to begin questioning Cadence’s paternity, but he just shook his head and admitted that Darth Vader can be a pretty scary guy.
And now, since it seems our fearless child is apparently afraid of Darth Vader, we’re thinking that perhaps her introduction to the Star Wars universe is going to be delayed for just a bit longer. After all, her Daddy wants his favorite movies to make a good first impression.
Tonight’s 365 Project entry is dedicated to my dear Star Wars-obsessed husband and his daughter who is not quite ready to for the Force. But you know what they say…the best things come to those who wait.
Lori Romano 