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Saturday, November 24, 2012

If there's one thing I've always said, it's that parenthood is all about sacrifices. Mostly of goats to Lucifer whilst begging for an undisturbed night's sleep. Unfortunately he couldn't hear our prayers yesterday over the sound of Toby crying, so we didn't get a lot of peace last night.

To make matters worse, we'd already made plans for today which had been set in stone a week ago, before I started dying of an undiagnosed throat condition. So despite feeling as rough as a mute insomniac with a cough, I dragged myself out of bed this morning for a monumental moment in this family's collective existence...

Our first ever trip to the cinema!

No, really. We've had Gardner Family Fun Days in the past, of course, but we've never broken down in tears at the pictures, so we felt it was about time we gave it a go. Amelie's home video collection makes Bob Monkhouse's look minimalist, but we've never let her run riot in a cinema, preferring to keep her movie mayhem confined to our own home.

Recently however, we feel she's reached a new level of maturity, and with Toby now able to watch TV in an armchair for a couple hours...


... it seemed like the perfect time to try it. Particularly when we discovered that Cineworld do tickets for £1 on Saturday mornings.

So we headed down to the Marina this morning to treat our children to a new level of luxury by spending three quid on a family outing. Toby got in for free as he's too young to eat popcorn. They were offering a choice of two kids' films today, one of which was 'The Lorax', so given Amelie's love of all things Dr Seuss, we opted for that one.

Unfortunately it was sold out when we got there. Which I found to be a slightly terrifying concept. Just the thought of a full size cinema completely packed out with children was enough to make me want to head back to the multi-storey car park. And then throw myself off.

But fortunately the second film was proving deeply unpopular. So having weighed up our options, we decided to risk £3 on 'The Three Stooges'. And frankly it was the best loose change I've ever spent. Admittedly, the popcorn we bought cost us more than the tickets, but the movie itself was great fun. Not for Amelie and Toby, obviously, but for me and Lisa.

Toby was too busy feeding to pay much attention, and whilst Amelie was transfixed for the best part of an hour, most of the jokes went over her head, and she was asking to go home ten minutes before the end. She did very well though, considering it was a film aimed at older children. Namely me and Lisa. Quite honestly, we both loved it. As befits a movie made by the Farrelly Brothers, it featured such delights as Larry David dressed as a nun, a priest being hit with a sledgehammer, and a scene in which Larry performs the Heimlich Manoeuvre on a dolphin with a peanut stuck in its blow-hole, only for the nut to fire out and hit a lion in the testicles. And we took our four-year-old to see that. It's what they mean by Parental Guidance.

1 comments:

Phil's Mum said...

I used to take your big bro to the pictures when he was 4 - to a Cartoon Cinema, which he loved.  For £2.50 we'll lend you Grandad's Laurel & Hardy DVDs.