Didn't see that one coming...

A couple of weeks ago we checked out "The Story of Babar" from the library.  The book, in all honesty, was a lot stupider than I remember.  Isn't that funny about childhood books/ movies?  But that's not the point.  Luke liked the book, and we read it several times.

So on Monday morning, with Luke home sick from school, we were looking for a show to watch on Netflix, and Babar seemed like a good idea.  In the book, Luke wasn't phased at all about Babar's mother being killed by a hunter.  In the movie, however, it was a lot more scary.  First of all, there were noisy gunshots.  Secondly, the hunter really did look pretty scary.  Luke seemed a bit tense, but he was alright.

But then, after Babar got to the city, he was chased by a policeman brandishing a gun.  Luke crouched down and plugged his ears.  I asked him if he was okay, and I said I thought we should turn the movie off.  I'm not sure if my concern was the trigger, but what followed was about a 10 minute total meltdown.  He started beating the keyboard with his fist.  He screamed.  He cried.  I pulled him onto my lap and reassured him that the movie was off.  He asked question after question about why guns are loud, about why the hunters were mean, about what would happen to Babar, about what would happen to him.  He was really shaken up!  The first few minutes we just tried to calm Luke down and help him use words to express his feelings/ needs.  "I feel scared.  I don't like this movie.  Turn it off."  And then we answered his questions.  He cuddled with Mama and D for a long time.  And now we know NEVER to watch Babar or ANY movie with guns, etc. ever again.