Yesterday, my son, my friend Donna, her friend Susan and I went to the movies to see “Up” in 3D. It was my son’s first time going to see a movie in the theater. I was hesitant; even a little neurotic.
When I mentioned my movie plans to my dad, it triggered a memory for him:
“I remember when we took you and your brother to see the first Star Trek movie. It was 1979. They almost didn’t let you in! We had to lie and tell them that we came all the way from the Bronx with a baby. Then they let us in.”
“How old was I?” I asked my dad. Now I was getting nervous.
“Oh, I don’t know. A baby. Remember it was 1979.” I was born in ’79 so my age had to be in terms of months.
I called the theater ahead of time to ask if they would even let my child in. The theater employee on the other end was not phased by my query.
“You can bring in any child. Doesn’t matter how old.” she said sounding surprised that I was even asking the question to begin with.
“How old is your son?”
“14 months.”
She began to laugh
“Just don’t expect to see the whole movie.”
So I thought I was prepared. It was an experiment. I was imagining that I would be in and out of the theater with a cranky toddler. But what the heck?
So off we went. We arrived at the theater just in time for the previews.
We took the stroller into the theater and sat it at the end of a long row of movie seats. The movie began and I sat there anxiously awaiting my son’s freak out session.
Guess what? It never happened!
He sat there mesmerized by the enormous screen, the animated characters and vivid colors.
He was locked in. He watched the whole movie eating Cheerios out of his snack cup (which we later lost at the grocery store) and didn’t cry once! Ha! Take that movie theater staff!
Needless to say I was truly amazed that my 14 month old son had a greater attention span than I do on a daily basis. He was able to sit through an entire full length movie. Good job Ari-bear!
