It's late and I can feel the sleepiness creeping over me already. (I will say, it's odd to consider 9:35 PM late, but here I find myself.)
My mom and dad took the kids, Brian and I to see Toy Story 4. The last time Brian and I took the kids to see a movie was Zootopia. Brooklyn was still on the inside. We were unaware that she was going to make an early appearance.
Taking kids to see a movie is one of those things that seems fun in theory. I am grateful that my dad treated us today. I am also grateful that it's such a rare occurrence.
As soon as the lights in the theater went down, Brookie fell asleep. I didn't realize this until about 10 minutes into the movie.
Meanwhile, Doug made loud proclamations during the previews. After the Frozen II trailer, he said, quite loudly, "are you freaking kidding me with this? November?" I was pretty grateful the theater was mostly dark, as it allowed me to pretend that he was a stray child who just happened to wander into our group.
There was Jeremy, who always wants to be Jerry Lewis but is mostly relegated to being Dean Martin. He gets the most laughs when he isn't trying so hard to make everyone laugh.
Bekah did her best to seem small and unassuming, though she did occasionally shush her brothers.
I smuggled my Contigo mug of coffee into the theater, because a) I love coffee and b) I like to break rules (not always, hence my full name on Facebook instead of the name most people call me). I drank most of it while we were there. I did regret taking a sip at one point after a well-timed line by Forky. (It was all I could do to keep the coffee in my mouth and not spit it out or have it come out of my nose.)
Probably about halfway through the movie, I had to use the washroom. I'm a woman who has had four kids. I love coffee and I drink a lot of water. It wreaks havoc on me. I forgot to check RunPee to see when I should make a break for the bathroom. As soon as the end credits started rolling, I made a beeline for the bathroom.
As I walked out, I heard Doug and Jeremy signal that they were ready to go. I left Brian to deal with it, so as to avoid an embarrassing public incident.
I needn't have worried, it turns out that Brookie had that taken care of. She just recently became potty-trained. We had her wear underwear to the theater, thinking of course that we would just check in on her throughout the movie. The thought occurred to me, partway through the movie, that it would be better for her to have a diaper on. Unfortunately, as I've been doing the "hallelujah-my-12-year-streak-of-buying-diapers-has-concluded" dance, I stopped carrying the diaper bag. (Honestly, a diaper bag with number four has been hit-or-miss for me. I just rifled through the bag last week and found a pair of 18-month pants and a 2T shirt. The girl's been wearing 4T for several months now.)
So, it turns out that she was asleep hard enough that she wet her pants. Brian had to deal with that situation in addition to Jeremy and Doug being ready to forcefully exit the theater. Meanwhile, Bekah and I didn't know where anyone was. We finally connected with my parents, only to discover that we had missed a post-credits scene.
Upon arriving home, Bekah got angry (thanks, tween hormones), walked into the house just ahead of me and slammed the door in my face. I told her to go to bed, but she felt compelled to be extremely emotional in close proximity to me.
I bailed and went on a walk because between that and Brookie's situation needing to be managed, I had hit my limit.
Irony of all ironies, Brooklyn had taken a very chintzy paddleball (not the normal-sized one, a smaller, plastic one) into the theater. In the melee of leaving, we left it behind. She cried when she realized she forgot it. It became an important lesson in why we don't let the kids take their toys places. It was also an important homage to Forky.
No comments:
Post a Comment