A Trip to the Movies

Today was another fun-filled day for the girls, despite a few adult snafus (I take all the blame.) Seeing as I didn't have to work this afternoon, Caitlyn and I decided to take the kids to see "The Lorax"; after all, the book that it's based on is one of their absolute favorites. Having searched movie theaters for showings yesterday, in anticipation of trying to go after preschool today, I knew that it was playing both in nearby Chestnut Hill, as well as down in Boston. Caitlyn and I thought it might be a fun adventure to take the green line train down to Boston and see the film there; the added bonus for me was that I have a gift card to the particular theater we would be going to. The girls were, predictably, giddy with excitement over getting to ride the train, and the ride in was a pleasure for all of us:




Madeleine spent the vast majority of the ride squealing, "Wheeeeee! The GREEEEEN train!" over and over again, while Julia felt compelled to ask at each and every stop, "Is this our stop yet?" When it finally was our turn to get off, both girls were wildly skipping along the sidewalks, crazy with excitement. Walking into the movie theater, Julia declared gaily, "It smells like POPCORN in here! I can't wait to get POPCORN! I LOVE POPCORN!"

Then we walked up to the ticket desk, and I found out that I had been too dense to double check today's showings. "The Lorax" had its last screening yesterday.

"Change of plans! Let's go get some ice cream for snack!" I announced, as Caitlyn quickly browsed with her phone to find out what time the movie was playing in Chestnut Hill. We had more than an hour and a half to get there, so that allowed us the leisure to stop in at a nearby ice cream shop and order the girls a delectable snack. Julia was, at first, unwavering in her loyalty to movie popcorn. "I'm not going to get any ice cream. I'm just going to wait for popcorn," she told me. "Okay, but if you'd like ice cream too, it's okay with me if you get some now and then have popcorn later. It will still be awhile before the movie, and it IS snack time right now," I assured her. Nope. "I'll just wait to have popcorn at the movie," she vowed steadfastly.

That is, until we walked into the ice cream shop. "Uh... Mama... actually, I think I will get some ice cream," she decided. What a shocker.



Then it was BACK to the green line, all the way back to our car, which was parked by the train station, and all the way back to our house, a town away from the green line train. Julia was completely unwilling to indulge me in my attempts to put a different spin on the whole experience. For her, the only thing that mattered was seeing the movie, and because of that, the whole diversion into Boston and our ice cream snack was irrelevant. What she really cared about was that we were going to see "The Lorax."

ME: Well, girls, wasn't that fun riding the train into Boston to get ice cream?!?
JULIA: Well, Mama, it's okay, because we're STILL going to see the movie.
ME: Yeah, I know, but wasn't that a cool adventure getting to take the train and eat ice cream for snack!?
JULIA: Mama, you don't have to keep saying that, because we STILL get to go to the movie theater.

Yeah, Mom. It's no big deal that you wasted half our afternoon with this unnecessary trip downtown, because after all, we're going to see the movie at a place closer to home regardless of the several hours of time we wasted earlier today.

Anyway, I have to admit, I found it fun to ride the train with the kids, even if it was basically all for a trip to the ice cream shop, and despite the movie mess-up, we all arrived back home in good spirits. Best of all was that Ethan had wrapped up his work day by this point, and was able to accompany us to the movie. It was a pretty big deal, after all; it was Madeleine's very first time at a movie theater:



The movie was actually shown in 3-D, making things a bit complicated for Madeleine. As you can see in the following picture, the glasses were absolutely colossal. If they were this big on Julia's face, imagine them on Madeleine:



The end result was that Ethan and I took turns holding the glasses on Madeleine's head for her, since, pumpkin-headed as she may be, the glasses were simply too enormous to stay put over her little ears. About 3/4 of the way through the movie she decided to ditch the glasses, making the screen a little blurry for her, but not enough so to detract from her attention:



This being her fourth time in a movie theater, Julia was pretty attuned to typical movie theater etiquette, and was able to watch in captivated silence throughout. Madeleine had a little more to say, though luckily the theater was pretty much as uncrowded as it can get:



Sometimes she had seemingly unanswerable questions, leading to a lot of back-and-forth between us:

MADELEINE: (pointing at the Onceler's face, showing through the cracks of his house) What's THAT Onceler?
ME: Uh... the Onceler.
MADELEINE: But what's THAT Onceler?
ME: That's the Onceler.
MADELEINE: But... what's THAT Onceler?
ME: Honey, that's just the Onceler.

Other times, Madeleine was just too overwhelmed by the movie moment and couldn't help herself from exclaiming about it. For example: "TRUFFULA TREES!!!", or "THE LOOOORAX!!!", or "Oh NO! The WATERFAAAALLL!!" Most of the time her exclamations occurred during loud movie moments, so the whopping four other moviegoers in the theater with us were probably not much disrupted. There was a moment, however, of total silence after the final Truffula tree was knocked down, suddenly filled with a pipsqueak voice ringing out throughout the theater: "What HAPPENED??" Then, of course, there was the moment that took us all by surprise; the point in the movie just before the Lorax was lifted away, at which Madeleine suddenly, unexpectedly cried out, "Why's he TERRIFIED?"

At any rate, the girls enjoyed the movie so greatly that Julia was in complete ecstatic oblivion when we exited the theater, jumping and galloping around in wide, dizzying circles with no regard to any of the other people walking through the theater hallway. Madeleine left the theater in tears, crying out, "But I want to finish WATCHING that show!" I know it was terribly cruel of us to not allow her to sit and watch the credits roll, but sometimes parents just have to be the bad guys.

Now, weary after our unintentional veeeery long afternoon-into-evening movie outing, Caitlyn and I are going to go off and let our brains go to mush for a little while...