Payback's a Fish

When I was little (I don't know, Mom? 3?), I watched Wizard of Oz like some people watch the news - morning, noon and night. Over and over until my poor mom had it memorized. It's almost a pity that's not my tale now, or the title of this post could be "Payback's a Witch," which is a lot funnier in my mind.

Alas, payback is a fish. A fish named Nemo. Anna discovered "fiSHEE" when she was feeling under the weather a few weeks ago. Since then, we have watched the movie AT LEAST 50 times. As soon as she wakes up in the morning, "fishy?" After breakfast, "fishy?" When we're reading stories at bed time, "fishy?"

I'm starting to wish that Nemo would just stay lost.

The other night I decided enough was enough. There was not going to be any Nemo playing in the background tonight. We were going to have a nice dinner and family playtime after that with the TV OFF. Anna asked several times after arriving home from daycare, "fishy?" To which I replied, "Not tonight, Honey. Let's build a tower!" Finally, after knocking down several towers and tiring of my attempts to amuse her, she looked at me, long eyelashes batting, and said "Fishy? PLEASE?" To get the full picture, you need to know that Anna does an altered version of the sign for please when she says it. She puts both her hands on her stomach and rocks her entire body back and forth. Now picture the above scenario again...See why I cracked?

After I said we could turn on the fishy for 10 minutes, there was much toddler rejoicing, complete with attempts to jump up and down (just up on her tiptoes) and clapping and shouts of "Yay! Fishy! Yay!"

I suppose I deserve Nemo on repeat after the hundreds of times I made my mom suffer through Wizard of Oz. And I suppose I'm lucky that Anna landed on a good movie like Finding Nemo (I mean, who doesn't LOVE Ellen Degeneres as Dori?!?). But I am eagerly awaiting the day that Anna says "Elmo" or "Ariel" or ANYTHING other than "fiSHEEE!!"