toy story 3

Dang. What a movie. Now, we all know Disney owns me and Pixar can do no wrong so it's no surprise there but man, it was really an incredible film regardless of it being a cartoon. I mean, after all these years, about oh say 15 years since the original and 11 years since the sequel, you are nuts about those characters. They are practically your toys and though obviously none of us played with Woody or Buzz Lightyear toys, they're such a part of our everyday life, that we imagine our children will obviously play with their own Woody and Buzz someday.

Besides being really hilarious and intense in some scenes to the point of actual edge of your seat excitement (or maybe that's just me), it had some great new characters. My favorites were Trixie voiced by the girl from Flight of the Conchords Kristen Schaal who frankly we didn't hear enough of in this movie, Buttercup voiced by Jeff Garlin, and Chuckles the Clown who just cracked me up besides being scary as all clowns usually are.

But man, was it a tear jerker! The story is about Andy, the toy gang's owner going off to college and what will become of his toys. After years and years the kid has gotten rid of all but the core toys that he cannot bear to part with but is too old to play with and they spend 99% of their time in a toy chest in Andy's room, locked in the dark, presumably waking up and wandering around when their owner is gone. They want so badly for him to play with them but he's just grown up.

After the movie I wondered about toys and growing up. Obviously I am a 28 year old married woman that works, pays taxes, worries about health insurance coverage, by all intents and purposes I'm an adult. Though oftentimes I still feel like a kid pretending to be an adult, independence, husband, and all. Just Sunday we took the whole family to Chuck E Cheese. I still love cartoons. I get giddy every time I go to Disneyland. And I very badly want a slinky dog and to collect all the toys from the Toy Story movies.

The last time I truly played with a toy I was in college. I was visiting my family and my three sisters, you know them, the ones that have babies and are getting married, were playing with their polly pockets. As I sat on my computer I looked and listened to their game and got sucked in. By then the girls were about 10 or so and had gotten their playtime down to a science. They had piled the toys into groups, cars, houses, dolls, and they played rock scissor paper to determine who went first. We took turns choosing a house, then a car, then a doll. After everything had been dolled out I bent down to pick up my house and the girls all yelled "NO!" The rules, unbenownst to me, were that the houses stay put and the game continued. The girls would narrate the game and would indicate when it was daytime and each doll went to work and then it was nighttime, and we all had to stay indoors because the headless horseman would come and get you if you were out and about. This is when I grew concerned for them, but still laughed.

Of course, it's only natural that playtime with toys ends at a certain age. You get other things to play with. Laptops, phones, video games, pets, and then, children, who will inevitably want toys of their own and you'll get an excuse to play with toys again. An excuse to be a kid. Which frankly, we shouldn't feel the need to hide, we're gonna be adults all our lives, it's okay to play.