Tonight we are having our bi-weekly Family Night. During the winter months....which is basically anything that isn't camping season the kids and I try to have a Saturday date night with my parents. We often do board games which almost always ends up being Clue the Paris Edition because the kids seem to love it so much. They love it despite someone always getting knocked out of the game half way through. I don't think this is why they love it but maybe there is a little bit of glee in that to date it has always been me or their grandpa who are sidelined by the draw of a single card. Sigh. Okay, it's probably the time spent together and all that. I know, I know. It just seems disproportionally rigged somehow.
Darn you Hasbro Games!!
Tonight however we are going to go see the movie Puss in Boots as our family adventure. The adults are looking forward to this because it looks pretty funny, Drew is looking forward to it because he loves all cats, and I think that Camryn just loves the idea of it because Puss is an animal that can talk. Voila....Family Night!! As I was thinking about the five of us heading out to the theatre it occurred to me just how amazing it is to be able to take my kids and go to a movie just like everybody else. I know that for many of you out there it might not seem like such a big deal but for us this is a huge evolution.
You see there was once a day not so long ago when the fear of leaving the house with both children at the same time was enough to make me just pop in a Wiggles VHS tape and crack open a bottle of wine.....for you young ones out there this was the pre-Blu-Ray, pre-DVD era......and no it wasn't in the black and white days as my children seem to believe. Amazingly this was just a half dozen years ago. Back then stopping at the local grocery store for one or two items was like playing Russian roulette. The gun in this case was my sweet little Camryn. I never knew when she would "go off". It could be after ten items or maybe just one. And I don't mean the slightly whiny snargy nosed 2 year olds whose mothers have a cart full of groceries and they are standing there oblivious. I mean a child who was so completely done with shopping that she would freak out, pulling things off the shelves, ripping her hair out, tantruming on the floor, and screaming like I was beating the life out of her.....Ah....good memories. Just for the record you could just as likely expect the same in a restaurant....even McDonald's. No way would we risk taking her to a first string movie. And then there was poor little Drew who had noise sensitivity issues. I'm sure his screaming sister helped make this so much more pleasant for him.
So for us to now plan to head out to a major movie like this on the second day after opening is actually pretty monumental. No more having to wait until the cheap theatres last ditched effort to squeeze a buck out of a film for us to show up. All the while desperately hoping that the theatre is mostly empty and thankful we only paid $2 each when I once again had to walk out of there half way through, Camryn firmly in the football hold, Drew toddling behind while we walk across the lobby pretending not to notice all the people starring at us. Nope, we can go on the second day of release at the real theatres....3-D in fact.
Yeah us!! Waiting in long lines, eating expensive crappy theatre popcorn, paying full price for the movie, getting our seats kicked by some little puke behind us, and walking on super sticky floors......just like everybody else!! Um, has being "average" always sucked this much?
