Movie mania

I took Nolan and two of his friends to the movies Saturday afternoon to see “Robots.” A few people commented that they thought I was nuts, brave, etc. to take three 4-year-old boys to the movies by myself, but it really wasn’t that bad. They were pretty easy to manage.

We were watching Nolan’s friend Danny and his little sister Stephanie that day while their parents were out house hunting. So I thought Kris had the harder job, trying to get Thomas and Stephanie to nap at the same time.

I was already planning on taking Nolan and Danny to the movies. Then Kris suggested checking to see if Nolan’s friend Brendan could some too. I thought, sure, why not? Kris wondered if I could handle all three kids and I reminded her that she was the one who suggested it.

“Yeah, but I didn’t think you’d say yes,” she said.

The movie was decent. Parts of it seemed reminiscent of “Monsters, Inc.,” which was a much better movie.

What was more fun was watching the kids watch the movie. Before the lights went down I reminded all of them to let me know if they needed to use the potty and we could go outside.

“Outside?” one of them asked.

“Well, no, not outside. But there’s a bathroom out where we came in,” I clarified.

But one of Nolan’s friends proudly declared for the whole theater to hear, “I tinkle outside! I tinkle on the grass with my daddy!”

Then we saw the preview for “Star Wars: Episode III.” Nolan hasn’t seen any of the Star Wars movies yet, but got very excited when Yoda appeared on the screen.

“Hey, I’ve got him! Yoda!” he said, referring to my old Yoda hand puppet that now sits on top of his book case in his room.

I’m not sure if Brendan knew who Yoda was, but he shared Nolan’s excitement, yelling, “Yeah! Yoga! Yay, Yoga!”

Danny remained pretty quiet throughout the movie, but Nolan and Brendan were a little chatty. Then, during the movie’s big climax, the three of them all stared at the screen in silence, transfixed by the action.

Finally, Nolan asked, “What happened to that guy?”

“I don’t know,” Brendan answered, “but I’m still stuck in this chair.”

It was then that I noticed the theater chair had folded up on top of Brendan who was stuck in the seat.

After the movie we paid a visit to the Easter Bunny and took in the sights of some race cars that were on display in the mall.

On Sunday, we decided to let Nolan watch “The Lion King” for the first time. Most people we know don’t seem to have any reservation about letting their kids watch this movie, but for some reason we always sheltered Nolan from it. After all, the death of Mufasa is pretty heavy and the fight at the end between Simba and Scar is kind of violent.

But we decided Nolan was old enough, as long as we sat there and watched it with him. He doesn’t seem scarred for life so far.

The funny thing is, we always worried that Nolan was too young to watch it before, but now here was Thomas sitting right there with Nolan watching it now. Although I think he’s still young enough that a lot what’s on TV sails right over his head.

Today a friend at work loaned me a copy of “The Incredibles.” I’ve been dying to see this one myself. So we’ll watch this later this week.