Wait, wait. It’s coming. Darth Vader tells Luke Skywalker, “I am your father.” And bam! Little Faris’s eyes pop wide open and his jaw drops.
Somebody in the UK posted the 4-year-old’s priceless reaction on You Tube, and the video’s gone viral. Now, some commenters think cutie pie Faris was coached, and I have to say I wonder how many 4-year-olds would actually get that twist at the end of “The Empire Strikes Back.” (Nearly a decade after the fact, I still regret taking my 5-year-old daughter to see “ET,” which freaked her out.)
Coached or not, Faris’s reaction to the Star Wars movie made me smile and remember the times my own kids delighted over stuff I’d seen or experienced a million times. I like to think of these as “through the eyes of babes” moments. Like when the ocean tickled their toes. Or when they made s’mores and their marshmallows caught fire.
How ‘bout you? Are there times you wished you had your camera ready to capture your kid’s amazed reaction to something you barely noticed anymore? And if your children are teenagers, do you miss those days of wonderment? Sigh.
Rita Rubin, a contributing writer for msnbc.com and today.com, previously covered medicine for USA Today and U.S. News & World Report. She lives in suburban Washington, D.C., with her husband and two daughters.