You know you are a parent when you’ve only seen one of the Academy Awards’ 10 best-picture nominees…
Let’s hear it for Toy Story 3!
What does it say about me that I’ve seen Toy Story 3 four times in the movie theater and about 1000 times at home after my 6-year-old was gifted with the DVD version at Christmas?
There was a time when I would plan my entire day around the Oscars. I’d clear my calendar, invite friends over, order in pizza or Chinese, and then refuse to answer the phone while I drooled over my favorite Hollywood hotties and watched as Joan Rivers made a fool of herself interviewing said hotties on the red carpet.
Now I am lucky if I get to see an Oscar recap on the news the morning after the Academy Awards.
Thanks, parenthood!
I’m not the mom who locks herself in her bedroom and leaves the parenting to the huz on Academy Awards’ Sunday. I don’t shoo kids away so I can watch six consecutive hours of E!’s red carpet arrivals. I don’t have the luxury of spending four straight hours ogling at the Hollywood moms who help keep the double stick tape industry in business… but I wish I did.
I know a mom who has a nearly decade-long deal going with her spouse in which she gives him a hall pass from parenting on Super Bowl Sunday and he reciprocates on Oscar Sunday. On Academy Awards night she sits glued to the TV reveling in her “me time.” She can cry in peace during the “In Memoriam” segment, cattle call when the camera cuts to Hugh Jackman and stuff her face with endless amounts of popcorn without having to share a single kernel with sticky-fingered children. She gets the night off from bathing muddy kids, looking for misplaced toys, and breaking up fights between warring siblings. For one night she gets to escape from the piles of dirty laundry and tune into must-see TV. Never mind that like me, she has no clue what movies are nominated for best-picture. The fact is that on Oscar Sunday she scores a major victory: a break from mommy duties.
By the way, all you parents out there, if you weren’t as lucky as my pal, and didn’t get to see The King’s Speech capture Oscar gold for Best Picture tonight, you might find solace in this factoid: The critically acclaimed British drama that won the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival, seven BAFTAs, seven Golden Globes, and four Academy Awards, was also the highest grossing film for three weekends in a row at the British box office until… Tangled took over.