Cinderella {Our First Family Movie}

I admit it-- our kids watch tv.  Not all day, and not all the time, but they do.  And because of that, Harper could not miss (and neither could I!) the fact that a new Cinderella movie was coming out.  She has seen the classic Disney cartoon version and liked it, but she was so much more excited to see the new remake despite the fact that there was no animation involved.

One of the tricky parts of being a working mom is that there are many times when it would make more sense for us to have a babysitter or ask a family member to keep one or both of our girls, but when it comes down to it, I just don't want to if it can be avoided.  I just feel like my weekends are the bulk of my family time, so I like to spend every second (ok, most seconds) with my husband and my littles.  Mom Guilt riddles me.  So, lucky for little Wills, our idea to take Harper to see Cinderella in the theatres came after a particularly busy work week, which meant there was no way I wasn't going to take her to the movies, too.  Yes, you just read that correctly.  Yes, we took a four year old and a just shy of two year old to a movie.  And a non-animated movie at that. 

Half of the fun of surprising the girls with our family date to see Cinderella was getting ready to go.  I got the girls each a little outfit to wear on their special date.  Aren't Harper's leggings the gaudiest, loudest, most they're-so-ugly-they're-cute things you've ever seen?  and here I said my kids wouldn't be decked out in a bunch of licensed character gear.  Ha! That was before they were born (or had ever met--and subsequently become obsessed with-- Dora or any Disney princess), obviously.  I even found a cute little tee that said "Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo."  I may need to go get that out of the dirty clothes to see if I spelled it correctly, since--shocker--that phrase isn't recognized by spellcheck.  ;)  So, boy was Sam a lucky fella, with all three of his girls sporting some Disney's Cinderella gear. 

I bought advanced tickets on Fandango and planned to go to the latest matinee showing at 5:00, thinking that would allow for some naps but wouldn't be so much later that I'd have to be worried about them getting tired again.  Neither of our girls are gracious tired people, so that's always crucial for planning.  I'm always so jealous of the parents with the quasi-narcoleptic kids that will just go ahead and pass out wherever they are when they're tired.  Nope, not here.  So, 5 p.m. seemed like a safe bet.  But, then the girls went down late for nap.  Which means they got up late from nap.  Which means we left the house late.  Which means Sam drove past the exit for the movies.  (I know that doesn't make sense, but I was trying to help you out, honey! wink, wink.)  Which means we got there late, and the lovely Carmike employee said, "why yes, we do have four seats left for our sold out movie that technically started rolling 7 minutes ago, but you may all be on different rows."  As appealing as it sounded to go ahead and let our toddler sit with someone else during a two hour movie, we thought we should go ahead and move our tickets to the next showing.  Since it was opening weekend for the movie, we could fortunately catch one just an hour later.  That gave us just enough time to go walk around the mall for a bit, and find Sam a super cute blazer to wear to the McCoys' wedding next weekend.  Win!

We made sure to get back to the movie theater early and picked out our seats about 20 minutes before the previews even started.  Go ahead, do the math.  That meant 20 minutes before, 15 minutes of previews, 10 minutes of a Frozen Birthday short feature, and 1 hour and 52 minutes of Cinderella.  That is a longgggggg time for kiddos to stay in there seats.  But, those girls were troopers.  There was a lot of switching parents' laps and asking questions, but with an auditorium filled with kids, we didn't feel out of place or like we were disturbing others.  And they weren't disruptive enough to keep me from crying when Cinderella's mama died.  She sang the lullaby "Lavender's Blue" to young Ella in the movie, and Harper has since been asking me to sing it to her before bed.  So sweet.

As crazy as it sounds, we would be up for another movie with our two crazies.  Although, next time, I'm making sure it isn't over an hour and a half, and it's animated.  Those two would've made it even better. 

       

"Where there is kindness, there is goodness. And where there is goodness, there is magic."