First Date

Yesterday was Family Day. Perhaps our last real Thursday Family Day before we move, so we wanted to do something special. Amber suggested taking the boys to a movie. This idea frightened me quite a bit. The last time we tried anything like this was when we took Daniel to a hockey game when he was about 6 months old, and the last time we went out to a "sit-down restaurant" Josh threw a fit and a glass bottle of juice across the room.

We decided on "Madagascar". Daniel had been seeing the commercials all summer and seemed pretty excited by it. We told both of them we were going to the movie theatre with a huge TV and popcorn and everything, but I'm pretty sure Daniel was thinking it was going to be like Blockbuster.

The boys were good all morning. No crying, no temper tantrums - well, almost none. We got to the movie theatre and as we were walking up, we saw a school bus full of 9-year olds pull up. We rushed in to get in line before them and bought our tickets. The boys both got in free - BONUS!

Then we went to the concession to get our snacks. There were no customers there until we got in line. As I ordered our popcorn and drinks, I had this creepy feeling that I was being watched. I turn around and see an endless sea of little heads with a couple of frazzled-looking leaders trying to get the kids into Coke and non-Coke lines. As I pick up our food, I hear the head wrangler say, "OK, I need 27 Kiddie Combos, 13 with Coke, 5 with..." Poor popcorn dude didn't know what hit him.

By this point Daniel is in sensory overload. He's running from the candy dispensers to the arcade games and back to the lighted posters. Amber and I are weighed down with 3 arm loads of refreshments and a wiggly 22-month old and our loud commands of "Daniel! Red stop!" are making as much of an effect as a bicycle cop in a war zone. I finally get him herded towards the right door. He helps by grabbing a couple booster seats and we head in.

We are the first people in the theatre. Maybe this will be good. Maybe it will just be us. Maybe the pre-teen mob will go see "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory". We climb the mountain of stadium-like seating to the summit so we can sit right at the back. (When we were at the hockey game almost 3 years ago we were also in the Mt. Everest of nosebleed seats.) We got the boys set up with their boosters and their little boxes of popcorn. Josh was transfixed. He quickly figured out how to lay back in his chair and watch the ads while absent-mindedly popping popcorn into his mouth and sipping on his juice without looking away.

We realized that unfortunately we were about 20 minutes early. The boys have a hard time focusing on anything other than Veggie Tales for more than 20 minutes, so I took Daniel to the bathroom to give him a little change of scenery, and to avoid any need to get up during the movie. As we were leaving we saw a neon swarm entering the theatre doors. It was a day camp and the leaders and 15 or so preschoolers were all wearing matching yellow shirts (so cute!). This actually made me feel quite a bit better. These adults were outnumbered about 5-7 to 1 and their kids weren't much older than Daniel, so I figured we'd not be the only ones there with sugar-crazed movie viewers.

When we got back, we still had about 15 minutes, so I took Daniel for a walk around the theatre. This was one of the new style theatres with the very steep seating arrangements so you don't have to watch the movie between two heads. We tried out the front row - "That's the biggest TV I've ever seen!" and then kept on moving and we climbed back to the top where Josh was still munching away on his snacks, transfixed by the ads for candy bigger than his house.

The Yellow Pages Daycamp sat a few rows down from us and by the time the show started, only a few other people had come in. I guess the 27 Kiddie Combos went somewhere else. The lights went down and the boys loved it. After about 15 more minutes of ads (our 86 minute experiment is quickly turning into a 2 hour adventure), the movie started. When the Dreamworks studio logo came on, Josh broke his trance and called out "Shrek!"

About 30 minutes in, Daniel decided he had to pee again. Amber took him but no luck. All was good for about another half an hour. Josh and I were eating from his little popcorn box, regularly refilled from Mommy's large bag and I was sipping away on my BladderBuster large Coke. I was actually happy to take Daniel to the bathroom at the one hour mark. We both needed it pretty bad.

They made it to the end of the movie. Josh moved from his booster onto a couple laps for a while. He was actually dancing in the aisle during the credits. He yelled "Bye movie!" when we left, and the two boys fell asleep in the car on the way home.

I was incredibly and pleasantly surprised at how well this went. It looks like there's a theatre in Nakusp. Maybe we'll try this again some time.