My Single Mom Life

I remember when the teens were little boys and all of the cartoons and shows they just loved to watch.
I swear we would watch the same movie a dozen or more times in a 24 hour period.
The Little Mermaid, The Fox and the Hound, and the Power Rangers.
Oh, sorry, my bad.
Sebastian told me to get it right, (he's reading over my shoulder) it's The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Duh Mom. *eyeroll*
They knew every line and every single song in The Little Mermaid and The Fox and the Hound, they knew every single line of the Power Rangers too.
How could they not know every line, song, and dance?
They watched them a million times over the course of their childhoods.
We didn't have DVD players when the teens were little, all of our movies were on VHS, so once the movie stopped, the screams to rewind would begin.
They would do this little butt-squiggle-fidget-dance on the living room carpet until the movie got done rewinding and I pressed play again, then there would be a few claps of applause and then silence while staring at the opening scenes of the movie.
They absolutely loved all of their movies, they had so many of them, still have most of them too.
I have so many kids movies on VHS still, all kinds of Disney movies, tv show episodes, cartoons, all kinds of kid movies.

I remember when the local grocery store in Maine had The Land Before Time movie on sale really cheap, for like $3.99 if you bought some other stuff with it.
I think you had to buy 2 boxes of cereal and a gallon of milk, and then you could get the movie for just $3.99, and I remember the promotion was only for 1 month, and every single time we went grocery shopping with my mom, Mark would beg for the movie.
He knew exactly what end cap the movie was on too, and he would get so excited when we got closer to that end cap aisle.
He would start doing the butt-squiggle-fidget-dance in the cart seat as we went up and down every single aisle and he'd get a glimpse of it, then down an aisle, glimpse, up an aisle, until we were at it and then he'd get this huge grin on his face, he just had to see the box for the movie, hold it in his hands.
He had absolutely no idea what the movie was about, but he saw those dinosaurs and just knew he had to see it, had to or his little 4 year old life would be over.
My mom and I had talked about getting it for him, that she wanted to do it, so I made Mark put it back on the shelf and I told him I would buy it next week, that mommy didn't need any more cereal and milk right now, we had 3 boxes and a gallon of milk at home already, and his little face just got all sad on me in an instant.
His lower lip pouted out, his big brown eyes looked down at the box one last time, and he sadly placed it back on the shelf.
My mom was right behind us and she put it in her cart, hiding it behind the boxes of cereal and gallon of milk in her cart.
The entire ride home to my apartment, Mark talked about the dinosaur movie at the store, he didn't know what it was about, he didn't know the names of the characters, but he just knew he was going to love that movie so so much, and next week mommy was going to buy it he told my mom.
I carried all of my groceries into my apartment while my mom stayed in the car with him, she told me to slip it into one of my bags and so I did.
I grabbed the last bag and unhooked him from his cart seat, he hugged "Ninny" good-bye, and we went into our house.
I put all of the groceries away with his help, he would take one item at a time out of the bags and hand them to me.
I made sure that the movie was going to be in the last bag to empty, and when we got to it, I waited for his surprised response.
He pulled out 2 boxes of spaghetti pasta, a package of sliced cheese, a box of rice, a can of soup, and then he reached in the bag and grabbed the box.
At first he thought it was another box of Rice-a-Roni until he got a really good look at it.
He almost handed it to me and then pulled his arm back staring at the box with wide-eyed awe, and then he screamed, "Mommy! The dinosaurs! The dinosaurs movie! It was in the bag! You said next time! Mommmmmmy! The dinosaurs!!!!"
I told him that Ninny bought him the dinosaurs movie because he was such a good boy helping with the shopping, and she loved him very much.
I swear he had tears of joy in those big brown 4 year old eyes.
He asked if he could watch it, I told him we had to put the rest of the food away, go potty, make some lunch, and then we could watch it together.
He did everything as quickly as he could, he helped put the rest of the food away, he helped make his sandwich for lunch and carried his plate to his little table in the living room, and I put the movie in and pressed play.
He and I sat there watching The Land Before time together and eating our lunch, not a sound came out of his mouth the entire 1 hour and 9 minutes that the movie played.
He didn't take his eyes off of the tv screen that whole time either.
When it was all over, he said that he loved Littlefoot and all of his friends, this time tears were in his eyes, and he asked to watch it again.
I re-wound the movie and while it was rewinding we cleaned up our lunch plates, and then when I pressed play, he came to the couch and curled up with me to watch it.
This time he did talk through the movie, getting all excited when it started, crying when Littlefoot and his mom got separated, happy when Littlefoot made new friends, yelling at the T-Rex when it was chasing Littlefoot and friends, he really did love that movie as much as he knew he would from just seeing the box in the grocery store.

When little brother Sebastian grew up a little bit more and they could watch movies and tv shows together, they both loved the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Mark wanted to be the green ranger, Sebastian the red, they had all of the action figures and played with them non-stop.
They had sweatshirts, t-shirts, books, playing cards, little kid-sized chairs, all with the Power Rangers theme, and they loved every single one of those things.
Sebastian would cry if he spilled some juice on one of his fave Power Ranger t-shirts, Mark wouldn't be able to go to bed until he made sure that each and every action figure was safe and sound safely laid out in order of loved the most across the top of his dresser.
They still have almost every single one of those action figures too.
About a month ago, an advertiser sent us one of the new Power Ranger RPM Racing Performance Cycles with an action figure, it's the racing performance wolf cycle, the black ranger, and man, Sebastian just loves that thing.

When the UPS man knocked on the door, Sebastian got excited, he didn't even know what was in the box, he just gets excited when any kind of box or package shows up.
I opened the box up and made him stand back a few feet not letting him even get a peek inside, I read the accompanying letter, and then smiled at him before handing him the package.
Even though he's 16 years old now, his face lit up and his eyes grew huge, just like when he was a little kid getting a new Power Ranger action figure for the first time.
He went and dug out all of their old Power Ranger action figures and began playing with them all just like when he was little.

It makes me smile when I hear them playing with the toys, they are grown up, growing up, pretty soon they will be totally grown up and leaving my home, so seeing and hearing them play with their action figures, makes me think I get to keep my little boys for just a little bit longer.
Sebastian was in the room playing with those action figures tonight, I could hear him from out here at my desk, and it just made me smile and remember all of the movies and shows, all of the cute little things they did when they were little kids.