Favorite movies

A-chan's favorite movies are all Ghibli films. Particularly My Neighbor Totoro, but she likes Kiki's Delivery Service and Whisper of the Heart as well. If you've never seen a ghibli film, you have no idea the wonder and goodness that you are missing! We were introduced to Totoro by A-chan's godparents S & L and were all enchanted right away. Totoro has been a huge obsession for us all every since. Ketu and I are also fans of Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle but they are a bit too scary for A-chan right now.

The violin in Whisper of the Heart inspired our girl to buy a toy violin at the toy store the other day. We were pretty sure that she was going to zero in on the trains like usual and she did for a moment. But as we explored the store her eyes and then her fingers lit upon the SWtoys violin. It's bright red and comes with a purple bow and when you run the bow across the appropriate part of the strings it changes the music. It's awesome! That was yesterday. This morning she asked to watch WotH and when it was time for the violin scene ran to get hers to play along. I just couldn't believe it. (Of course, her playing didn't in any way resemble the song on the tv, but still...) Just before the holidays I had dragged out my tiny old violin from the closet to check on it and let her play it a bit, I have to wonder if she remembered that too. When I was three years old I took violin lessons (for a while) and I still have the tiny violin. It would be too cool if she wanted to play it when she is a little older. I don't want to force it on her or anything, though so we'll just have to see if she is interested. She already loves to play both my big and little harps. In fact, I think she gets to play them more often than I do!