Wall-E

With every Disney or Pixar animation there seems to be a wealth of material that becomes integrated into our family's daily language. For instance, when Finding Nemo came out, we possessively declared anything that was ours "mine, mine, mine, mine" like the seagulls flying through the sail of the boat. The little hyena from Lion King, with the voiceover done by "Cheech" Marin, said, "I'm so hungry I just gotta have a wilderbeast." That quote became the "I'm Starving" call out for the girls. I thought I would never hear the end of "Curse you teeny tiny toilet," from Despicable Me. Then, from the same movie, there was "I said DART gun...not [fart gun]."

Back when the movie Cars came out, I was trying to potty train Phoenix. Then I discovered a book called Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day, by Teri Crane (which, by the way, truly works). The book recommends throwing a potty party for your child, preferably a themed one. At the time, Nix was mad for the movie Cars. We had every Cars toy imaginable. He watched the movie at least once a day, had a big stuffed Lightening McQueen pillow, and Cars pajamas and slippers. For the party, I made a race track from the party room to the bathroom. Every trip to the bathroom became the Piston Cup (or in our case the Pissin' Cup).

Then there was Wall-E, the movie with the lovable robot who cleaned the Earth's garbage after man abandons the planet. Wall-E spends his days compressing trash and collecting trinkets. He is startled when he pulls the trigger of a fire extinguisher, naively throws away a sparkly diamond, engagement ring in favor of the hinged box he found it in, and is baffled by a lace piece made of straps and twin molded cups that end up on his face. This last piece, is a true curiosity to Wall-E or for that matter Phoenix.

Within days of seeing the movie, Phoenix skips from the doorway of my closet while I am getting ready in the bathroom one morning. He flashes his dimples at me before whipping my favorite black, lace, Victoria's Secret bra out from behind his back and over his eyes.

"Waaall-E" Phoenix impersonates.

"Silly..." I mechanically reply.