Free Dog Stays in the Picture by Susan; Morse Page B

right to savor his youngest offspring’s last eloquent bid for the future before uploading.
    David reads Sam’s long essay. And indeed, he agrees it is acceptable. Lilly rests her nose on my foot.
    Done. Submit.
    Nothing Is Broken.
    Our sons are on their way.

6.
    Toy Story
    AUGUST 2010
    T oy Story 3 has hit a major boomer nerve.
    This movie is the highest-grossing Pixar film to date. It’s even more successful than its predecessors, Toy Story 1 and 2 ; in fact it’s the first animated feature film ever to hit the billion-dollar worldwide box-office mark. That callous little wretch Andy has grown up and abandoned his toys, and he’s leaving for college exactly the same summer as Ben and Sam. This means we’re right smack in the center of the Pixar target zone.
    Toy Story is not the first movie to get under my parental skin like this. Back when the boys were just a couple of months old, David and I, exhausted, wanted to try a night out. We hadn’t yet dared leave all three children at home with helpers, and I insisted we needed three for this maneuver, for safety’s sake. We only had two sitters that I knew well enough to trust, so, crossing fingers, we took a leap of faith with a new one to make up a trio. Because I was breastfeeding, the outing required military-type planning—it took about a week to sock away enough extra breast milk to last for our two hours of freedom and get all my elaborate written instructions in shape for the three sitters. I think it was the newness of our third helper that got to me, although the breastfeeding theme in the movie David let me choose didn’t help much.
    Till then, I’d always enjoyed a good scary movie—I’d screamed enthusiastically through Silence of the Lambs the year before, clawing at David in delighted spasms. Now I was eager for another psychic release after the long postnatal confinement, so The Hand that Rocks the Cradle ,starring Rebecca De Mornay as the malevolent nanny, seemed like a great idea. When we left the three sitters with all their instructions and refrigerated breast milk I was walking on air, finally out with my husband like a normal person. The good feeling began to dissipate just a little when De Mornay (secretly having a psychotic break due to a recent miscarriage) started giving the baby’s mother mean looks behind her back. I tried my best to squelch images of Sitter Number Three back at home grabbing our butcher knife from the rack in the kitchen, offing numbers One and Two and then slowly, deliberately climbing the stairs, knife dripping, softly singsonging, El-iiiii-za? Be-ennn? Sa-ammm?
    We made it all the way to that scene where De Mornay slithers into the baby’s room to nurse it herself. Popcorn went flying, and I was out of there.
    You’d think at this point I’d know it’s best to avoid movies that are dangerously close to my emotional core. I can’t help it, I’m a sucker for cinematic catharsis. And Toy Story is just a cartoon—right?
    I’ve been investigating online. The general consensus seems to be that the Toy Story seriesis particularly meaningful to fathers. All the main characters are men. Original story credits for the trilogy are given to male writers only, and the opening date for this current installment was two days before Father’s Day, Friday, June 10. Three days after our boys’ high school graduation.
    For some reason David and I ended up seeing Toy Story 3 without our kids a couple of months ago. The Cineplex was packed with people of many shapes and sizes, and during the final wrenching scene, when Andy takes one last look at Woody, Buzz, Slinky Dog, and the gang from the window of his packed-up college-bound car at the end of the summer, I became aware of a throbbing mass of anguished adults literally keening all around us in the dark. I thought, Now I know where my ABBA ladies have been hiding. And they’ve brought their