The Curious Thing About George

Friday night is movie night in our house. It's the only day of the week when we watch movies. (For the sake of argument in our house, we've defined movies as anything over 60 minutes in length.) The entire family watches together huddled under blankets with popcorn on the couch. We started this tradition a while back, and it's been great. No more debates about when to watch movies...we watch them on Friday nights. The girls ask all week when it's going to be Friday.

The way we work it, we each have a turn to pick movies. We tried just letting the kids pick, but after 3 straight weeks of Cinderella, the writing was on the wall: Mom and Dad needed to influence the selection process. This week was our week to pick and we decided to give a real theatre a shot.

After a great deal of strategizing, we decided the 4pm matinee at a small theatre was the best bet. I took cotton for La Nina's ears (she doesn't like loud noises) and blue blanket for the Magster. The worst part was convincing the kids to walk down the long dark hall into the theatre itself. In fact, neither walked; we carried them. But once the previews were over and the movie started, the girls were totally hooked. La Nina even handed me the cotton from her ears after about 30 minutes.

For the record, Curious George was absolutely charming and he certainly bewitched my girls. Even the Magster sat still for all 90 minutes, except for when Dad wasn't quick enough with the popcorn and she had to walk over to him to get some.

So, all in all, it was a success. Something else we can do with the girls now that they are getting older. Of course, I almost choked when I spent $25 on popcorn and drinks for everyone. At prices like that, I doubt this will be a weekly event, but it will be a delightful special occasion.