Alex and I went to the cinema yesterday morning. He’s two and a half years old now, and his attention span is now long enough for him to sit through an entire movie (Monsters, Inc., Shrek, Beauty And The Beast, etc.) at home. I thought that he would find the process of watching a whole film in a big dark room, on a big colourful screen, interesting and entertaining. And he did!
We saw Finding Nemo. He spent most of the time sitting in my lap. We shared a cup of juice and a small tub of popcorn. He found it a “little bit scary,” especially the trailers, which grab all the exciting bits from upcoming films and condense them into a series of two-minute visual assaults. During the scary bits, he would raise his hands over his eyes and peek out through his fingers. He liked the turtles, and thought they were flying through the water–flappy flappy.
He got a little bit distracted when he noticed that the film was showing on the glass pane of the projection booth at the back of the cinema, but apart from that he sat perfectly still for well over an hour and a half, and he was entranced by the whole experience. After the credits rolled, and we had left the cinema, he commented that “dada fish name Marlin; dada Alex name Martin!”
(We’re definitely going to have to do this again. In future, though, we’ll probably try and skip the trailers, because they’re just too intense.)
What a wonderful experience!
I enjoy the way you write things. I had the impression I was sitting in the theatre in a nearby row, watching Alex watching the movie on the glass pane at the back of the theatre. 😉
This is one of the few (there are a couple more) things that I think I’ve missed out on by not ever having had children.
Watching Peter Pan, Mary Poppins, The Little Mermaid (and soon, I hope, Brother Bear) just isn’t the same without a kid.
Of course, I do it anyway! 🙂 (And Peter Pan is even more interesting after a couple of glasses full of rum and coke!)