My husband and I are avid movie goers. When we were first dating, we would go see two, sometimes three movies in one day. We still love the movies, and still go all the time, though often not together if we can’t find a sitter.
Our local theater has a program where you can see $1 kid’s movies on Tuesday or Wednesday. This was the last week of it, and they were showing on of my daughter’s favorite movies, Despicable Me. This was going to be the first time that she had ever seen a movie on the big screen.
Since my husband works 2nd shift, we were able to make this a family affair. This made me happy because I think my husband would have been sad if he hadn’t been there for the first time.
As for my daughter, she was very excited. She was a little awed at the size of the screen when we got into the theater. She giggled at the previews, and watched the movie without talking too loudly through it.
It was a really good experience. I think it helped that we saw a movie that she’s seen about 50 times already. She sat in our laps because the chair was a little big and tried to fold up on her. And she fell asleep in the car on the ride home because it was such an exciting morning.
We discovered recently that there is a drive-in theater about an hour north of us. For $6/person, you get a double feature in the privacy of your own car. You don’t like the folks next to you talking? roll up the windows and you’re in your own little bubble. What made this especially awesome is that we were able to bring our 15mo with us and see a movie. The going rates for babysitting & movies meant that seeing a single show would run us about $50. This way, we’re able to cut that in half AND see two shows. Plus, given the timing, our little Gummi Bear falls asleep (happily cuddled on a parent) for the second show and we’re able to transfer her to the carseat to go home.
Next time, we’re packing pjs to change her into before the second show so that we can just transfer her to bed at 3am. Luckily, we’re night owls so we’re (mostly) fine
The closest drive-in is about an hour and a half away, and my husband works nights, so we haven’t been able to do that yet. I’d really like to because I have fond memories going to the drive-in as a kid.
We just took our guy to his first movie — the Winnie the Pooh one. I was a bit nervous because he’s usually not interested enough in TV/movies to stay attentive for more than a half hour or so, but he did just fine. Helped that the movie’s only about an hour long. Also helped that there were snacks. 🙂
Both of my children were taken to the movies when they were still being carried around in a sling and I was nursing them 🙂 Then there was a time when we didn’t go because they couldn’t sit still. We used to sit in the very last row next to the aisle so our daughter could dance to the Disney movies we’d take her to. That worked.
Drive-ins are so worth it if you can go. When I was little my sister and I would go in our jammies and my mom would even take the potty so we didn’t have to leave the station wagon.