MOM-ents: Movie in the Park

If I want to take my kids somewhere fun, I am selfish in that I want to have fun also.  I try not to take the kids to too many things that are not age-appropriate because there is a reason that there is a suggested age for things-and why watching Ryann climb at the park in the spot that says “for ages 5 and up” is bound to be taking years off of my life.

We have never been to the at the for this reason.  I didn’t think that Ryann would make it through the movie and would be an embarrassing distraction so I never took her, regardless of how cool I thought it would be.  Plus, Matthew is now mobile but has no attention span so I would have been chasing him around which isn’t fun for me.  In fact, it is hard to relax anywhere with kids unless they are completely contained. 

I can let the kids have freedom in a large place indoors where I can at least keep my eye on them from a distance (and have been known to tie a balloon to Ryann so that I can see where she is at all times without actually being over top of her), but sweating and chasing Matthew around a park without a fence on West Road did not sound very appealing.  A girl can dream though.

I imagined my whole family laid out on a blanket eating popcorn and telling inside jokes in our coordinating outfits.  Then I remembered more than likely that Matt would probably fall asleep during the movie, Ryann would be walking all over the place trying to find a new family with a little sister, and I would forget to put bug spray on Matthew, so he would get enormous mosquito bites all over that would make people think I dragged him through a poison ivy patch naked.  The only thing coordinating about our outfits would be the matching stains we all had on our clothes from whatever the kids ingested that day.

So, being realistic, I brought Ryann alone to the movie for a “diva date” (which she quickly wanted to re-name “poop and pee date” because she is really into potty humor right now) and we packed some snacks, a blanket, a chair, and some bug spray and headed over after the picnic. 

The first thing that you need to know if you plan to attend one of these next summer is that the sign says it starts at 7:30 but that is really just the time that you can start arriving.  The movie doesn’t actually start until dusk which for us was close to 8:30 or so. 

I had my bag filled with things to keep Ryann entertained for the first hour, but I didn’t really need them.  There were kids of all ages there, and she promptly introduced herself to two “big kids” and had fun with them while I tried to act like I was doing something really important on my piece of junk cell phone (another tip:  bring a book to read if you are socially awkward like me and have no way of making small talk with other adults).

Everyone there seemed to have a really good time and Ryann’s friend Delaney showed up so her mom helped me by giving me someone to talk to-most of the kids watched the movie, but the kids that didn’t looked like they were having a blast too and no one seemed to care that some kids (including mine) were running around.  And when Ryann and Delaney went to entertain the crowd by dancing in front of the screen at the end of the movie I didn’t receive one dirty look from any parents.  Not that I could see in the dark anyway.  I can’t wait to do it again next summer.