Tuesday – Sweet Pea Goes To the Movies
Mar. 9th, 2010 01:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
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We decided to see how 5 year old Sweet Pea would do at a real movie theater this weekend. He has long been intrigued by the idea, but we’ve been reluctant to pay the price of a ticket only to have to leave half way through because someone couldn’t sit still or be quiet. When he was 4 I considered taking him to see Wall-E and later Up!, but didn’t quite trust his maturity level when those films were in theaters so I didn’t. He’d seen the advertisements for Alice in Wonderland and I’d casually mentioned that maybe we could go see it, so after that he because very insistent that this was something he really wanted to do.
They say you should never gamble more than you are willing to lose, so I had to consider the cost of the movie tickets. There are 2 cinemas close to me; a shiny new one with a zillion screens and IMAX and 3D features, and an old dingy one with 6 screens, old carpet, shabby seats and video games in the lobby that date back to the 1980s and still only cost a quarter (sweet!). The new theater costs $9.50 a ticket and more if you go to an IMAX or a 3D film. The old theater costs $4.25 a ticket and is never crowded, meaning if things went wrong we could leave and only annoy a handful of people. We went to the older theater. I figured I was willing to gamble $13.50, but not $28.50.
We had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant and discussed the rules for watching movies at a theater: primarily that that you can’t be loud and you have to sit still.
“If you can’t do that, then we’re going to leave without finishing the movie.”
Sweet Pea’s face crumpled and turned red. “But I don’t want to leave before the movie’s over!”
“Be good and we won’t. If you’re good, we’ll stay until the end. I promise.”
He scowled, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked from his father’s face to mine. “You two aren’t making me very happy,” he said.
The movie ended up costing us more than the costs of the tickets, of course. Sweet Pea wanted the whole movie experience, so we had to purchase drinks and popcorn. Once we were in the theater we found some seats that had some room to stretch out due to the fact that several seats in the row ahead of us had been damaged and been removed but never replaced. We settled in and talked a bit while the advertisements and movie trivia flashed on the screen.
“Shhhhhhh!” said Sweet Pea, who was very keen on the rules by this point. If his talking could make us have to leave before the film was over, he reasoned that the same rule probably applied to his parents.
“It hasn’t started,” Jeff said, “When the lights go down and the theater gets dark, then we have to be quiet.”
“Oh. Okay,” Sweet Pea whispered.
I was talking with the woman sitting behind us, there with her 13-year-old daughter and a friend when the lights finally went down. We had just made a joke and were still laughing about it when the first preview began.
“Shhhhhhh! Shhhhhhhhhh! Shhhhhhhhhhh!” Sweet Pea urgently wanted me to be quiet and be good so that I didn’t ruin this for him. I put my hand over my mouth as tight as I could so that no one could hear me laugh.
Sweet Pea was good as gold throughout the whole move. He did have to use the restroom at one point, but with him being a boy (being able to pee standing up is a great time-saving advantage) and the theater being small enough that the restrooms weren’t too far to dash to, we missed all of a minute and a half of the movie. All and all, Sweet Pea thinks that going to the movies is one of the best things ever. He was particularly enchanted with the popcorn maker. He liked the way you poured the kernels in and they spilled out into the glass box. This was one of the coolest things he’d ever seen, he told me. But not as cool as seeing a real movie in a real theater. I think he was better behaved than some of the adults around us who were talking and commenting during the film.
“That was awesome!” he gushed when we left, “Can we go again next week?”
We explained that we probably couldn’t. We have to wait until another movie good for kids comes out. Not all movies are good for kids to see, we told him. I suggested that when Toy Story 3 is released we could see that, if wants to.
“I want to I want to I want to!” he said. I guess it’s a date.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
We decided to see how 5 year old Sweet Pea would do at a real movie theater this weekend. He has long been intrigued by the idea, but we’ve been reluctant to pay the price of a ticket only to have to leave half way through because someone couldn’t sit still or be quiet. When he was 4 I considered taking him to see Wall-E and later Up!, but didn’t quite trust his maturity level when those films were in theaters so I didn’t. He’d seen the advertisements for Alice in Wonderland and I’d casually mentioned that maybe we could go see it, so after that he because very insistent that this was something he really wanted to do.
They say you should never gamble more than you are willing to lose, so I had to consider the cost of the movie tickets. There are 2 cinemas close to me; a shiny new one with a zillion screens and IMAX and 3D features, and an old dingy one with 6 screens, old carpet, shabby seats and video games in the lobby that date back to the 1980s and still only cost a quarter (sweet!). The new theater costs $9.50 a ticket and more if you go to an IMAX or a 3D film. The old theater costs $4.25 a ticket and is never crowded, meaning if things went wrong we could leave and only annoy a handful of people. We went to the older theater. I figured I was willing to gamble $13.50, but not $28.50.
We had dinner at a local Mexican restaurant and discussed the rules for watching movies at a theater: primarily that that you can’t be loud and you have to sit still.
“If you can’t do that, then we’re going to leave without finishing the movie.”
Sweet Pea’s face crumpled and turned red. “But I don’t want to leave before the movie’s over!”
“Be good and we won’t. If you’re good, we’ll stay until the end. I promise.”
He scowled, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked from his father’s face to mine. “You two aren’t making me very happy,” he said.
The movie ended up costing us more than the costs of the tickets, of course. Sweet Pea wanted the whole movie experience, so we had to purchase drinks and popcorn. Once we were in the theater we found some seats that had some room to stretch out due to the fact that several seats in the row ahead of us had been damaged and been removed but never replaced. We settled in and talked a bit while the advertisements and movie trivia flashed on the screen.
“Shhhhhhh!” said Sweet Pea, who was very keen on the rules by this point. If his talking could make us have to leave before the film was over, he reasoned that the same rule probably applied to his parents.
“It hasn’t started,” Jeff said, “When the lights go down and the theater gets dark, then we have to be quiet.”
“Oh. Okay,” Sweet Pea whispered.
I was talking with the woman sitting behind us, there with her 13-year-old daughter and a friend when the lights finally went down. We had just made a joke and were still laughing about it when the first preview began.
“Shhhhhhh! Shhhhhhhhhh! Shhhhhhhhhhh!” Sweet Pea urgently wanted me to be quiet and be good so that I didn’t ruin this for him. I put my hand over my mouth as tight as I could so that no one could hear me laugh.
Sweet Pea was good as gold throughout the whole move. He did have to use the restroom at one point, but with him being a boy (being able to pee standing up is a great time-saving advantage) and the theater being small enough that the restrooms weren’t too far to dash to, we missed all of a minute and a half of the movie. All and all, Sweet Pea thinks that going to the movies is one of the best things ever. He was particularly enchanted with the popcorn maker. He liked the way you poured the kernels in and they spilled out into the glass box. This was one of the coolest things he’d ever seen, he told me. But not as cool as seeing a real movie in a real theater. I think he was better behaved than some of the adults around us who were talking and commenting during the film.
“That was awesome!” he gushed when we left, “Can we go again next week?”
We explained that we probably couldn’t. We have to wait until another movie good for kids comes out. Not all movies are good for kids to see, we told him. I suggested that when Toy Story 3 is released we could see that, if wants to.
“I want to I want to I want to!” he said. I guess it’s a date.
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no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 07:57 pm (UTC)And, in all seriousness, I'm so happy to hear that you DID impose "The Rules" upon Sweet Pea...and that there would be consequences for him if he did not follow them, etc. Too many people bring children into the movies who are waaaay too young to be there, and then utterly refuse to do anything about it when said children begin to cry or act up. Like just because they want to see a movie, they should ruin it for 50 others who forked over a nice sum of money to do so? Gah.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 08:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 08:00 pm (UTC)I'm so glad they are making a Toy Story 3. I hope it's as good as the others!:)
no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 08:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 06:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 03:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 02:02 pm (UTC)Congratulations!
no subject
Date: 2010-03-10 03:09 pm (UTC)This does not apply to taking someone on a first date, of course. Then you have to spring for the nice theater. Once you are an established couple and sharing a bank account like Jeff and I are, you realize that cheap has a romantic charm all its own.