Toy Story 3 WARNING

Has it really been nearly FIFTEEN years since the first Toy Story movie arrived at the cinema and knocked us off our feet with its brilliance and touching story?

Gosh! In 1995 my children were SIX and 18 months old. Louisa got a Woody and a Buzz Lightyear from Santa that Christmas. I was a "young" mother and my husband and I were relative newlyweds who had just celebrated our tenth anniversary.

Fast forward, and I do mean F-A-S-T, and here we are in 2010...a futuristic sounding year if there ever was one. I bring the "kids," now TWENTY and SIXTEEN, to see Toy Story 3. Emma has only one year left of college, and Louisa is half-way through high school. I'm now OVER 50, and I shudder to think what my hair would look like if I didn't color it. My husband and I will celebrate our 25th anniversary next year.

In the "Toy Story" universe, Andy is all grown up and heading off to college. The toys are anxious...what will become of them now? He's been saving the ones who are nearest and dearest to him in his toybox, but now Mom wants him to clean out his room so his little sister can move in. The main thrust of the movie is the question of where Andy's, and our, dear toy friends will wind up.

This cuts a little too close to the bone for me. By the end of the movie, buckets of tears are cascading down my face. Where has the time gone?

And did I really have the stupidity to donate Woody and Buzz to our church yard sale a few years ago? WHAT WAS I THINKING!!!

The weird thing is that there's a whole generation of kids who don't even know about about Woody and Buzz and the gang. I made an "alien" voice: "The Claw! He has been chosen! He must go!" to a child the other day and she had no idea what I was talking about! The young mothers now were in their early teens when the first movie came out, and they probably didn't see it, so they have no interest in renting it for their kids. Now, with this new movie out, maybe Toy Story and Toy Story 2 will enjoy a well-deserved revival.

But if you were a young mother or father with little kids in 1995, and these movies are beloved enough by your family that they will want to see "Toy Story 3" even though they are no longer kids, then don't say I didn't warn you. It's a super movie that more than lives up to its predecessors, but bring lots of tissues!! Even my 20 year old was crying!