I took Danica to see her third movie in a movie theater last Saturday. Naturally, it was The Princess and the Frog. We'd taken her to Cars when she was about six months old and to Wall-E shortly after Colin was born, but this is the first time she'd had the patience to sit through an entire movie (or most of the movie). She wasn't totally hyped to see the movie because I hadn't shown her much of it and we hadn't talked about it a lot, which is not to say she did not want to see the movie. I think I was more excited to take her, but it was still a good time.
We went to an 11:30 am show, which was probably a little late, since she hadn't slept well the night before. In retrospect, the 10:30 show we missed might've been better. It was a pretty good day to go to the movies since it was in the 50's temperature-wise and raining cats & dogs. When we went to get in the car, I was a little concerned because it was coming down hard, but after a quick run back inside to pick up some snacks, the rain had stopped. Guess that was a sign to go through with it.
I wanted her to get a little bit of a movie experience, so I bought her some M&M's and a Sprite, thinking she might have some. M&M's yes, Sprite no (but I think she just wasn't thirsty). We got into the moderately-packed theater and found some seats in the middle near the top. She just kinda sat and took it all in, which was pretty cute. She didn't want to take off her jacket for a couple of minutes, sitting straight up on the edge of her seat, clutching her bag of M&M's.
We got there just a little bit early since I have a thing about getting to movies on time and not wanting to struggle to find a seat. You never realize how much crap is shown before you even see a preview until you wait with your child. She didn't take her eyes off the screen and she wasn't restless, I just wanted to get to the movie. She sat perfectly still, even through all the previews, with occasional smiles and comments regarding some of the previews she saw (favs were Alvin & the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and Toy Story 3). Once the movie began, she cuddled up next to me, holding my arm.
She sat through a good portion of it, either in her seat or in my lap. The M&M's and the bag of Cheerios and fruit bar I brought along helped out. I'll play critic for a second and say that it was an average Disney movie – not bad, but not groundbreaking. It took a while to get to the frog part, some parts in the middle were a bit slow, and there weren't a lot of “wow” moments. Consequently, she started to get happy legs about two-thirds of the way in, but she was good the rest of the way, staying quite and watching the movie despite standing up or bouncing her legs on her seat. She liked the movie, except the parts with the “bad man. He makes monster shadows.” Kind of her standard answer, liking most movies, but pointing out the antagonist as the part she could do without.
After the movie ended, she did ask if we were going to see Alvin and the Chipmunks, so I guess she did like the movie experience. I took her to see the giant Alvin and the Chipmunks statues they had out in the lobby, but she didn't want to take a picture with them, given that (her words), “They're not real.” She did end up snapping a photo of them, despite my offer for her to take a picture of me with them if she would let me take one of her.
We had lunch at Panera afterward, even though I knew she was getting tired. She did eat most of her grilled cheese and of course had all of her yogurt and milk. Hoping we'll have a chance to do it again, but my year of free movie tickets is up at the end of January and there are few kids' movies out after Christmas. Glad she's getting to the age when we can start doing things but still small enough for her to enjoy doing them with us.
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