Movie Time

(This is the experience of my monkey family going to the movies, not a review of the movie.)

So many people told us how much they enjoyed How To Train Your Dragon, that we decided we would try to take Monkey girl. Her favorite stuffed animal is a blue dragon her dad bought her so we thought this movie would be appropriate. We've never taken her to a movie before and to be honest, I was quite nervous about how she'd behave during it. We went on a Friday, at noon, after the movie had been out for a while (yesterday in fact) so there weren't many people in the theater. Just to make things more difficult and increase my anxiety, Dadda monkey decided we'd try to see it in 3D at the Imax theater. I wasn't looking forward to the idea of trying to get Monkey girl to wear her glasses the whole time and if she didn't then she'd be watching a blurry movie, which would make it even less likely that she'd sit quietly through it. On the other hand, we haven't seen a 3D or Imax movie (much less both) in this theater (we don't get out much/at all) so I was sort of looking forward to it. We arrived about 2 minutes before the movie started so we were off to a less than ideal start, but they sold us the tickets and we headed in.

As an aside, I can't believe how often the prices of movies goes up. With the 3D glasses fee (2.50 each) and our 2 tickets (at least the kids got in free) it cost us $28 to go during the day. Maybe it's a good thing (for our bank account at least) that we don't get out often.

We went into the theater, picked up our glasses (they had smaller ones for kids), and took our seats. We got an entire row to ourselves, which turned out to be a good thing. I think there were only 2-3 other groups of people in there. The other thing I had been debating was what to do with Bro Bro monkey. I brought the sling in the diaper bag because 1) he's too big for the Baby Bjorn and 2) I thought it'd be easier to have him sort of attached to me hands free so I could deal with Monkey girl, however I do have to say that I'm not really hands free with it because I guess I just don't understand how to use it correctly. I also wasn't really looking forward to wearing Bro Bro monkey because he is very squirmy and I thought it would take away from my ability to handle Monkey girl. I didn't think there would be a decent place to put his car seat, however score one for Dadda monkey because he was convinced the car seat would be fine. So I let him lug it in and sure enough, it fit rather nicely on the seat next to Dadda monkey.

Now onto the movie, Monkey girl happily put her glasses on and was impressed enough with the 'big tv' to sit still for the first half hour. She was pretty good for the first hour and only got a little restless. She also started taking off her glasses and playing with them, but at least she was still sitting quietly. Occasionally, she'd say my name, point to the screen, and say 'dragon'. Dadda monkey got a drink at one point and she enjoyed occupying herself by moving the drink from one cupholder to the next for a little bit. The last half hour was a little more difficult because she wanted out of her seat. I wouldn't let her past my legs, but Dadda monkey did allow her to pass so she was happier and she never got more than 3 seats away. Bro Bro monkey started to fuss once, but with a quick adjustment of his pacifier, he settled down again. We all enjoyed the movie and I'm glad we went. We might even venture out to see another one in the not so distant future. Now even Bro Bro monkey has 'seen' his first movie and he got to see it with his sister for her first time.