Summer Movie Series

Alternately titled:
Where I listen to toddlers shriek, get kicked in the back and smell poopy diapers to save a few bucks.

It always starts the same each summer.  I get excited about the FREE movie series shown each week during the summer and convince the kids that it will be fun.  They turn up their noses at most of the movies because they've already seen them or those are "too baby" but I can get them to commit to a few we skipped during the regular showings.

We pack a backpack with juice boxes and snacks because a free movie means free; none of this $5 kids pack from the concession stands for us.  We are simply here to watch your DVD on the big screen, thankyouverymuch.

First, you must arrive at least 30 minutes before the movie if you want your party of 5 to sit together.  Don't try to save seats because every mother coming in for the next 30 minutes is going to give you the look of death for robbing her and her children the opportunity to sit together for the free DVD showing.  If you do arrive after most of the seats are taken, be warned that now every mother sitting in the seats with an empty one near them will give you the look of "don't you even think about parading yourself and your 4 kids down this row, this seat is saved."

Very important- Look who you'll be sitting in front of.  This is the free movie full of 2-legged chair kickers and boy do they put on their practice shoes each week.  Try to sit in front of the parent accompanying the 2-legged chair kickers.  If the accompanying parent needs to make a bathroom run, be sure to use that opportunity to tell the 2-legged chair kicker to cut it out.  Nicely, of course.

Hopefully the movie will start on time because entertaining children for 30 minutes gets a bit difficult, even for the best mothers and daycare providers.  Finally, the lights go down and the movie starts...after the operator figures out how to switch over to the computer playing the DVD.  It can become quite comical to watch someone else navigate a computer while 200 people watch in anticipation.

Thirty minutes into the movie the toddler behind you starts asking about his shoe that fell off his foot.
"mommy, my shoe"
"my shoe, mommy"
"my shoe"
"mommy"
"my shoe?  mommy?"
"where's my shoe?"
"mommy, my shoe"
"my shoe, mommy"
Repeat this for the remainder of the movie.  I was about to offer up my own shoe for the kid.

Just as your thinking that the end of the movie needs to come soon or your chiropractor will be getting rich tomorrow, you smell it.  The smell of 100 toddlers and babies that all ate breakfast about two hours ago in one windowless room.
First kid: "mom, what is that smell?"
Second kid: "dude, who stinks?"  (This is a boy, of course)
Third kid: "mom, I think it's that kid right..."
Mom: "stop it, they are babies.  you pooped too, ya know."
Mom:  "dude, that stinks.  that's awful, what'd you feed that kid?"

And then you make a bee line out of the theatre as soon as the credits roll.

I'm going to suck as an old person; or senior citizen as I make my children say.