Have you seen Meet The Robinsons?
We love this movie. We recently watched it again during a snowy day and it’s adorable. Lewis could not be a sweeter character and Ben loves that Lewis is an inventor. The movie always inspires Ben’s own inventions for weeks to come after a viewing. We love that the Robinson family is perfectly imperfect and that they support and celebrate each others interests, differences and most importantly…they celebrate when someone in their life fails. Sounds a little crazy, right? It’s actually so well done your heart can’t help but smile.
When one of Lewis’s inventions malfunctions, they start celebrating and congratulating him for the opportunity to learn and tell Lewis, “In failure we learn. In success, not so much!” and then raise their glasses to him saying, “I toast to Lewis and his brilliant failure, may it lead to success in the future.” As if that wasn’t wonderful and positive enough, the family’s motto is “keep moving forward!” In keeping this positive attitude, things work out well for little Lewis by the end of the film. All that cuteness plus Disney throws in singing frogs, robots, flying space ships, dinosaurs, giant trains, science fairs…it’s fun!
Love, love, love! This movie is absolutely a family favorite, but of course there is another reason that I am writing about the film on the blog. In one of the scenes at the beginning, Lewis creates a machine that makes what else…peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Unfortunately, the machine malfunctions and sprays peanut butter on someone with a peanut allergy. It’s a very quick scene, but the character gets hives, starts to swell and then struggles to breathe. The first time I saw the movie, I gasped, but I was happy to see that an epipen is given and immediately you can see the character with the peanut allergy getting better. As much as the scene scared my son, I was glad he saw the character get an epipen and that it made him safe.
Ben still wants and enjoys the movie very much and even though he tells me, “the peanut part scares me mom,” he will still choose it during movie nights or snow days. Sometimes he wants to watch the peanut part and sometimes he wants me to fast forward it. I’m all about child-lead learning and I follow what he’s comfortable with, because after all he is learning how to deal with his feelings about his allergy.
Peanuts are in SO many movies and cartoons. I don’t like that my son feels scared when they show up. As a mother of a young child with a peanut allergy, I find myself constantly explaining over and over again that peanuts are safe for some people as I simultaneously reinforce that they are very dangerous for Ben. It’s a hard concept for a tiny person to get a hold of and I am so proud of our son every day for the way he takes his allergy in stride. Before this was part of our life, I never noticed how much peanut industry marketing is passively sent our way and sprinkled into our lives through the media and even though it’s been four years…I still get surprised.
Still, we don’t get discouraged. We don’t let the allergy stop us or slow us down, like the Robinsons, we just “keep moving forward.”
Have you noticed peanuts in children’s books, cartoons and movies? You’ll be surprised if you start to pay close attention!