A Cinematic Experience

On Father's Day, Mark and I packed the kids up for dinner and a movie to celebrate the awesome Daddy of our family. It was the kids' first movie theater experience, so we were a little leary of going. But, the rainy weather determined that we were doing something inside. So to the movies we went.

We headed to our local burger joint first, ordering grilled cheese with a vanilla shake for the kids and burgers and shakes for Mark and I. It was yummy! Next we drove to the theater and bought four matinee tickets for "Cars."

After we found four seats in the theater (the kids loved having their own rocking chairs), the previews began. At the end of each one, Abby and Ethan would loudly cry out "more!" as if each preview was too short and they wanted to see more of the movie. After about a million previews, the movie finally began.

The kids did really well for the first hour or so, watching intently. And then they got a little bored. They wandered amongst our four chairs, venturing a little farther away with each pass until Mark or I hissed, "come back to your seat." Ethan was restless, and came up with his own idea of a distraction. "Potty!!" So Mark missed a few minutes of the movie while Ethan went pee. Shortly after he returned, Abby decided she wanted to see the bathroom herself. Of course, she didn't actually do anything on the toilet. We were beginning to think that all hope was lost until the tractors appeared.

There is a scene in the movie where two of the main characters go "tractor tipping" (similar to cow tipping, for those who haven't seen the movie). The tractors are very bovine-like and pretty dumb, so they were pretty funny. Abby and Ethan started to laugh. And laugh and laugh. Soon, I could hear some kid in the theater cackling and it made me smile to hear the joy. I looked over at Mark and Ethan, and realized that the cackler was Ethan himself! He was laughing so loudly, Mark and I couldn't help but crack up.

The rest of the movie held their attention fairly well. When we left the theater, I checked the time and realized that the movie is over 2 hours long. Ethan and Abby were amazingly good for such a long period of time. And they really did enjoy the movie, because since then they have noticed all kinds of advertisements for "Cars" everywhere we go and on TV. Today especially, I discovered how much they liked the movie. At the store, Abby and Ethan chose Cars Pull-Ups over Buzz Lightyear.

Move over, space ranger, there's a new Ferrari in town.