I noted several years ago that the Regal Cinemas do a $1 kids movie during the week in the Summer. So, when Jason and I went to see "The Heat" (Love it! Gut-busting funny! Still have total girl-crush on Sandra Bullock... and the two of them working together? Stellar!), I picked up the summer schedule... and I built today's events around it.
Jason and Cameron set out before dawn to go fishing at Bennett's Creek in Suffolk (about an hour away, where the theater is). They only got in a few hours fishing before I picked up Cameron. Still, they caught two croakers. I apparently think that is far more impressive than they do. The low tide was early and it just wasn't a good window of time for bank fishing, I guess.
I picked up Cameron to go to the movie with Benjamin and me. The hand-out schedule really emphasized "Doors open at 9:00, limited seated, first-in-line basis." This convinced me that we needed to be there an hour before the movie start time of 10:00 a.m. We did not. Not only were we the first movie-goers there; we were just about the only ones until 30 minutes before the start time. At that point, all the field trip groups started rolling in and filling up the stadium seating.
I got my dates mixed up (typical) and rather than seeing the cartoon about a tropical blue parrot named "Rio," we were left to choose between "Paranorman" and "Coraline"- both rather... dark choices for Benjamin's first movie. He did pretty good though. He was entertained until about the last 15 minutes of the movie when the unplanned purchase of popcorn wasn't enough to pacify him. Thankfully, I think he was just young enough to not know to be scared... or to get the muscle-lad older brother having a boyfriend joke.
Following the movie, we scouted out a park between the movie theatre and home. Being the nerdy English teacher I am, Cameron and I bounced around theories on what the prefix "para" mean.. paranormal, paraplegic, parasite, parachute... How related? Eventually, after making a few U-turns and shouting a few explicatives at Siri's directions (not really... only because Benjamin was sleeping). Silly me didn't think to turn down the road to the cemetery to get to the playground. (I was really starting to sense an unpleasant theme to the day at this point.)
I packed a simple picnic lunch of PB&J sandwiches (as conveniently displayed by Benjamin's sticky beard), some sliced watermelon that we picked up from the Farmer's Market yesterday, bags of chips, and a jug of water. My frequent penchant of grabbing food while out was evident though by Cameron telling me he had a gift card to Panera and asking if we were going to Tropical Smoothie... despite a cooler full of food in the trunk.
The Watermelon Seed Spitting contest was one of the ideas on The Martha's Bucket List I planned on overlooking. You just cannot convince me this is something the Queen of Northern Etiquette would condone. However, as I was sitting at the picnic bench with Cameron and the idea was churning in the back of my mind, I proposed the game. He spit. I spit farther. He spit farthest. Ok, he won, enough with that. I should have just followed my instinct and allowed having summer fresh watermelon a few times this season suffice for that check on the list!
During lunch, Benjamin told me about the movie...
There was a witch and she went ooohhhh...
Then I got scared, like whoaaaaaa!
Honestly, he wasn't scared. He just knows how to ham it up... obviously. I wouldn't have taken him to the movie if I thought it really was going to be scary, or wouldn't have kept him there if I thought he was getting scared. The scare-factor , for the most part, was equal to the ghostly encounters on an episode of Scooby-Doo. And, as I have often said, this is my Fearless Child. After lunch, we hit the playground, and he bypassed the toddler area completely, racing for the tallest slide he sees.
And no, I don't know where he gets his "hamming it up" from at all!
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