"I want to learn the ways of the Force"

I recently discovered I was failing in essential duties as a father. Frodo, at 6 years of age, didn't know what a Jawa was. He'd gotten one in a kid's meal from Burger King (mmmmmm....Whopper), and was clueless. And then a couple weeks later he got another one of those toys--think it was an Episode IV-era Luke--and if you looked up through his feet you could see pictures from the movies. One of the pictures was of an AT-AT during the Hoth invasion and he asked several questions about it, during one of my answers I used the word Stormtrooper. "What's a Stormtrooper?"

That sent me reeling. When I was his age, I had multiple Stormtrooper figures, I knew that the white armor was something the bad guys wore, they were all about helping Vader and the rest to hunt down Luke, Leia, Han and Chewie. It was one of the things I knew best in the world (not saying that's necessarily good, but it's the truth). And now my son...my eldest son...the smartest and wisest of the lot...he was completely and utterly untaught in the ways of Star Wars. Everything he knew about Star Wars was learned from seeing Revenge of the Sith commercials on TV. What kind of father am I?

So this weekend, we corrected that. Or at least started the correction. I made the kids watch Episode IV (and, yes there was a bit of coercion there). Frodo was into it, spent a lot of time discussing various things with me during the movie, but afterwards was non-committal about liking it. Samwise was leaning forward during the final battle sequence, eyes wide; he practically cheered during the medal ceremony; and had to sit on my lap during the Vader/Kenobi duel--but that was cool with me, I knew he was getting it. The Princess was lost during most of it, but cheered when the boys did.

Now I've just got to figure out when I can fit in Empire. But until then, I've got this unusually strong desire to listen to my Twin Sister CD.