First trip to the cinema

Today was a memorable day as I was taking our 4 year old to the movies for the first time. We went to see "Cars" with his two cousins, one is three and the other a little over 2. It was fun.

My wife and I kept mentioning it during the week, making sure that he was sufficiently excited about going to the film. He has been collecting these little toys from the movie in the Cheerios cereal and has also got a couple of toys from McDonald's.

He's not been doing too well with the collecting though since he has three of the same toy and he was a bit annoyed about that. Ah well, what can you do. The other thing that annoys him is that he gets the toy out of the Cheerios, puts the stickers on it to make it look just like in the movie and then his little brother comes along shouting "stickers" and then proceeds to try and peel the stickers right back off again.

Anyway, we've been talking about the movie this week before going to the cinema and he's aware of who Lightning McQueen is (the car in the picture above) and one or two others. I had to go onto the internet the other evening to figure out who these characters are.

We arrived about 12:20 at the cinema anyway and waited outside for the cousins to arrive. They duly did and we headed into the Hypoglycaemic area, also known as the food counter. 6 drinks, 3 big bags of popcorn and 3 bags of junk sweets later and we were on our way in.

His 3 year old cousin panicked when we got to the door of the cinema and he could see the lights were off. My brother took him out to the bathroom, to compose himself I guess, and we all went in.

Straight away they were off with the "I can't see, I can't see!" until this guy in front of us told us that they had booster seats at the door. My brother grabbed one each for the little guys and we were off.

My little guy was sitting right next to me and clearly oblivious of the fact that we were in a cinema and not at home in the front room. He's shouting in my ear.

"DAD, IS THE CAR SHOW ON NEXT"

"DAD, CAN I HAVE SOME OF THAT POPCORN"

"DAD, WILL YOU HOLD MY DRINK"

"DAD, CAN YOU MOVE MY SEAT. I WANT TO SIT ALL THE WAY BACK"

"DAD, DAD, DAD, IS IT NEARLY ON YET"

I'm shushing him a little saying that we're out in a cinema and that other people are trying to hear the film too. He, at this stage, is putting his hand over my mouth in a gesture meant to suggest that I am in fact making way too much noise.

After something like 25 minutes of ads and an amusing short animated film the movie finally starts. Don't these people have kids. Don't they realise that kids only understand "RIGHT NOW" so when they sit down in the seat they expect the film to start right then.

I've got to say that I thought the film was fantastic. It was funny, poignant, clever and witty and a lot of fun for the little guys and adults alike. That's my own view.

The music was well chosen as were the voices for the characters. A film that is a lot like Toy Story but a better story in my view.

About 10 minutes from the end and after twice being asked by my 4 year old "DAD, IS THIS NEARLY OVER?" (caps are intentional) he says to me "I wonder what is on next, maybe it's the pink panther".

He could not be persuaded that we were in fact not in some kind of big living room watching a big TV. He was adamant that Pink Panther or Inspector Gadget was coming up next.

When the film ended I took him to a toy shop and he picked out a little toy car from the film. He knew exactly which one he wanted. He is not the sort to change his mind or to hem and haw. He's a lot like me.

I had fun but I do suspect that he didn't pick up much of what was happening during the movie. I'm not worried because I sense the DVD will make its way into our home and I'll be seeing this again, many times, possibly at the expense of the good people of the California Highway Patrol.

I've been taping the CHiPs episodes and will watch them some day when the boys are off at college:-)