A Very Important First

Oh, my, I have missed the Internet. I've been without it until...last night? I think? For the profound reason of we moved the desk and the ethernet cable wouldn't reach properly, and we didn't plug the longer one in because it would have taken all of five minutes, five minutes which we just didn't have, because it was THAT kind of a week. Which is now over, because today is Monday, which marks the first REAL day of Christmas break, and I can get all caught up on reading and commenting and on writing the several dozen AMAZING (no, not really) posts that I have in my head. A warning, most of them contain either pictures of Look How I Have Decked My Halls or Babies Being Cute In Marginally Different Poses OR Basketball Games, And How We Won Some.

I know. You might want to sit down for this.

Anyway, TODAY I have a momentous event to chronicle here...

Baby's First Trip To The Movie Theater!



I know Ariel is kind of young, but I was all set to haul her out of the theater if she started being disruptive, and I just couldn't pass up the idea of her first movie theater movie being one of the Chronicles Of Narnia movies.

Also, I wanted to see the movie, myself.

So we left Nessie at home with Joey's mom, and took Ariel out on a little excursion.




And oh my lord, she was delighted. With the funny seats (although she spent most of the time on my lap, reveling in not having to share my lap with her sister!) and with the enormous screen. With the surround sound and with the chips and queso that we shared. With the mouse, Aslan, the minotaur, the dragon, the star-lady, and Edmund... she clapped and smiled her most winsome smile every time he came onscreen, causing me to poke her and point out BEN BARNES, HELLO!



She was also delighted with the bag of peanut M&M's we snuck in, and with Angry Birds on my iphone during the scary sea monster part. Not that SHE was scared, I just felt that if it frightened me, I probably should distract the not-quite-two-year-old.

And really, she was amazingly perfect the whole time. There wasn't really anyone else in the theater to be bothered if she HADN'T been, and the only time she made too much noise was when someone's small baby in the back of the theater started to cry. Then she jumped up and started yelling, "Babeee! Babeee!"

But mostly the only talking she did was when she was smacking Joey or I to get our attention so she could point out something fascinating on-screen.




Because it was just too exciting for us to miss! Did you SEE THAT MOUSE RIDING THAT DRAGON, OMG YOU GUYS!!

And so, our movie tradition carries on to the next generation. We were pretty delighted with her as we walked out of the theater, each holding onto one of her hands, swinging her between us. And I couldn't help but think... a few weeks after I saw the first Narnia movie, I was set up on a blind date with some guy named Joey. A few weeks after I saw the second one, I found out I was pregnant with Ariel. So...hmm.

Now, ask me if I was delighted with the crazy and unnecessary changes they made to the plot of the movie, and I will tell you NO, MOST EMPHATICALLY NOT. I can usually suspend my book nerdiness and enjoy a good movie version of a story, but in this case I had a hard time seeing WHY they felt the need to change it so much. However, it was lovely and more lovely visually, and Ariel enjoyed it, and I can't bring myself to be mad about all the random and strange things they added in there.

Except, I do kind of hate all the power struggles they keep putting in between all the kings. Do they think it wouldn't be believable the way it was written? Because we see a bunch of kids get sucked into a PAINTING and go with it, so I bet we could suspend disbelief long enough to think that maybe people could be gracious and noble about sharing authority.