Babies Sherwood

Wednesday, Jane and I went on a date. I took her to see Ratatouille. She had never been to see a movie in a theater before, so I think she was a little nervous about it. She was tired, but went along anyway. We found our seats while they were playing cartoons or something. She was watching the big screen instead of walking. We sat down, but she didn’t want to sit in her own chair, she wanted to sit in my lap, which was fine with me. She thoroughly enjoyed the previews, laughing at Underdog and something about a magic toy shop. At one point, she got bored, and told me she was tired of this show and wanted to go. Unfortunately, this was only a few minutes into the actual movie.

When she did actually watch the movie or previews, there were times that I apparently needed to be told what was on the screen. “That’s a silly zebra”, or “That’s a talking dog” or “Look dad, a rat!” or “Rats don’t belong in the kitchen, silly rat” followed by her inhaling laugh that she does when ever she’s feeling like she knows better than someone else.

I settled her down for a while, and then she wanted to go walking, so we walked out and got some skittles from a gumball type vending machine. This satisfied her for a while.

The people next to us had left (another parent/child pair), and so she had some room to walk back and forth. Finally, right as the final act of the movie was beginning, she decided she wanted some popcorn. I was too distracted to think clearly and agreed to go get her some. So we left for the concession stand, and I let a guy go in front of me in line. Bad idea. He took forever to order, and after they got the first bit put together, he hemmed and hawed over what candy he wanted to get. I had a hard time waiting patiently. I finally caught the eye of one of the two people helping him, and asked for a small popcorn, which she took care of for me. They made some money off us: $5 for a bag of popcorn, that we barely ate any of. There were only about 10 minutes left in the movie when we got back to the theater. Should have just gotten more skittles.

So when we left, one character was trapped, and when we got back, he was free. And I have no idea how it happened.

Don’t really have any cute Jane stories from the movie, but it was a special memory for me. Despite not knowing what happened. (Rebecca and I went to Barnes and Noble last night, and I looked for a story book on the movie, but the best I could find just said that two other characters helped the trapped character.)

I determined that it really isn’t necessarily a good idea to get into the theater early with your young child, because then, by the time the movie actually starts, they’ve already been sitting for 15-20 minutes, depending on previews, and if it doesn’t grab them right away, they’re pretty bored and ready to move.