How Do You Spell Disaster?

M-O-V-I-E!


Drew's Dad and I (well, me, actually) had the brilliant idea to take Drew and his Sister to their first movie this weekend. We thought that Wall-E would be an excellent movie to see with them. They enjoy animated shows, Pixar has an excellent reputation for animation and the movie is only an hour and a half long. It had been raining all day, so why not?


Sure, it started off well. Drew and his Sister really enjoyed sitting in their chairs, snacking on some popcorn and sipping their juice boxes.

They even enjoyed watching the opening previews. The highlight was when Drew started saying "cheese", "squeak, squeak" and "oh, no" over and over at the preview of The Tale of Despereaux Mouse. He was enjoying every minute of the trailer. (Maybe we should take him to see that movie instead?)

From there, it pretty much went down hill. The kids didn't want to sit in their seats, insisting on standing in the aisle. Then, they were hanging on the backs of the chairs in front of us, disturbing others. They started fighting over the bag of popcorn. Drew wanted to walk down the aisle of the movie theater, running into other movie watchers. He protested with one of his loud screams when I kept him in our seating area. Drew's Sister decided that she needed "to go potty." By the time Wall-E actually took the screen, we had about had it, and when Drew screamed at the top of his lungs, "Ma Ma, Hi," I had had enough and escorted him from the theater.

Drew's Dad and Sister stayed and enjoyed much of the movie, although she became restless at the end, wondering where I had gone. They left with ten minutes to go and did not see the end of the movie.

Drew and I spent the time wondering around the lobby of the movie theater. It turns out that you can actually use the lobby of a movie theater for learning to listen exercises:

• "Drew," while pointing to the movie poster for HSM2, "where are the girls shoes? Where are her eyes? What is this?," while pointing to a characters' hair. We spent a good five minutes identifying body parts on this poster.
• Drew met "The Hulk." There was a large statue of him in the lobby. Drew was a little nervous of it at first, but warmed up after a few minutes. Now, he can give the Hulk high five, and can point to his toes.
• Drew also knows Batman, although he calls him, "Bad Man." It is quite funny.

While in the lobby I saw a woman walk up to the customer service desk and ask for an assistive device. Thinking that she was hearing impaired I waived my hand at her and said, "Is that a listening device?" I explained to her that I was curious as to how it works, since my son is deaf. She explained that it was actually a device for the blind that describes the action in the movie, which helps her since she is legally blind. As we spoke I learned that she and her husband work for a not-for-profit organization that advocates for the deaf and blind. They worked with the theater to bring these devices to Columbus.

So, I guess the evening wasn't a total wash, but considering that I only saw about two seconds of the movie, I wouldn't call it a fun, relaxing evening. We will attempt to take the kids to the movies again, but it might be a good year from now! Oh, and I have to acknowledge AMC. The receptionist saw me walking around with Drew for so long that she gave me two passes to see a movie at a later date (which Drew's Dad and I will attend sans the kids). How nice is that?