Motherhood has done so many bizarre things to my heart and my head.

Pre-babies Chris and I would create weekend adventures, travel, visit friends, and or enjoy a creative date night out. On our least creative weekends we would likely enjoy dinner and a movie. Dating still happens in our world but is limited typically to dinner and a long walk around the neighborhood. Movies are pricey these days, then paying a sitter on top of this for the evening means we haven’t seen a movie in the theater for about 10 years.

That said, the few exceptions to this are when, we, as a family, take out a second mortgage and decide to go to the movies.

An expensive treat, albeit, a treat none the less. The sacrifice feels great, Joshua thanked God at dinner last night, not simply for the food, but for the opportunity to go to Inside Out! So something significant is being communicated with this type of grandiose gesture!?!?!

What’s the verdict on Inside Out?

Well worth the effort and the moolah!

The movie quickly moved to my number one position for favorite kid movies (of all time)–and quite possibly one of my top 10 movies ever! Woah. Huge statement. Maybe I am media-deprived, or never really had very good taste in cinematography. But something within this movie moved me the way I was moved watching, Dead Poet’s Society, The Mighty Ducks, or Hoosiers. (Yes, all 3 also in my top 10. But I digress.) Maybe it was because I have totally been “in my head” for the past few months, or was a Psych major in college, but within minutes of the film unfolding I knew there was something special about the premise.

It captures simple, subtle, truth. It is filled with kindness, understanding and community.

It is profound.

Without turning this blog in to a spoiler…I must say this movie affirmed my last 30 blogs or so–and gave me more confidence and permission to delve in to all the emotions we are given to navigate our plot on the planet. Our personhood begs to be honest. To be authentic…and this tender little movie makes your kids laugh, but it causes parents to think. It wants to give you permission: your psyche and your child’s psyche permission to do what it–in its most pure form–was designed to do.

I know many will not see this flick until it comes out via Red Box. I get it. But if you are able to drink a few less Starbucks lattes (or 10)–then I would run, not walk, to your closest movie theater to experience a show that gets in to your head and pulls on your heart.

May You Be a  Blessing and May You Be Blessed,

Jenni