The One With QT at the Movies

I left a grey and raining beach mid-day on Sunday only to drive into 90 degrees and sunny as we made our way home.

We had made plans to see How to Train your Dragon 2 with my sister and her kids but the only showing was at 1:30 and there was no way that I was making it out of the beach house and back home by then, but there was a 5:00 showing of the new Planes Fire and Rescue movie in 3D and it seemed like it was something we could get to if people just learned how to drive on 95 and if QT didn't have to stop to go to the bathroom.

Well QT did have to go to the bathroom but by the time I pulled off the exit he had stopped screaming about it. I went to get him out of the car and he asked me why we were stopped. I said so that he could go to the bathroom, he said he already had. Great. Luckily, we were only 20 minutes from home.

After stripping the car seat and taking a quick shower we headed out to the movies. $88 later (and this didn't include paying for QT because he is 3 and under) we headed in.

I just want to say that I didn't really enjoy the first Planes movie and was trying to figure out if it would be possible for me to take a nap during this film, because I had zero interest in actually watching it. No worries though, I think I saw a full five minutes total.

After sitting down, putting on 3D glasses and eating way too much sugar, QT got out of his seat. He climbed over the row of seats in front of us and walked towards the aisle still wearing his glasses. He then made his way back to his empty seat after some not so hushed directions from his mother.

Then he had to pee.

I ushered him out of the theater and towards the bathroom. It was set up where you are supposed to enter on one side and exit on the other. I went towards the entrance, he went towards the exit. When I went back to get him, I realized he had run out of the bathroom. I found him sneaking into Theater 10 with what I can only describe as a devilish grin on his face.

I finally drag him back to the bathroom. Now, he is still not tall enough to pee standing up in a woman's bathroom. I think when he is tall enough, he probably won't have to be in the woman's bathroom with me but until then he has to sit. What he didn't have to do was use his 3D glasses to direct the flow. (Insert your own penis joke here.)

We wash hands, head back to the theater and sit down. This lasted for about three seconds before he was once again climbing over the seats and hanging out in the aisle. That was it for me. I left my sister with the Ladies and headed out with QT in my arms, 3D glasses on my head.

As we leave the theater I tell him he has to recycle the glasses. He feigns putting them into the bin two or three times, each time looking over at me like he is getting away with something, before he finally drops them into the cardboard box and then immediately drops to the floor crying "My glasses, my glasses." And I though the Little Lady was high drama.

We spent the next 10 minutes looking at the life size cardboard cut outs of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles before I realized that we would not be able to wait out the ending of the movie by naming each Ninja Turtle over and over. So I did what any other mother would do and we headed towards the huge escalator. What I probably should have done was insisted that he hold my hand. It clearly says to do so, but QT wanted to do it himself, so that is when I found myself riding backwards down the escalator while my 3-year-old waited at the top. He then decided that instead of taking the escalator he would take the 45 stairs down to meet me all by himself. Ugh.

I did finally get him to hold my hand and we rode the escalator for a time or two before that wore out its usefulness. Now what? I had no idea how much more time we had to kill before Dusty Crophopper finally finished what I can only imagine was rescuing someone during a fire. We took one last ride to the top and exited the theater at the top of the parking garage.

I briefly considered taking him into the shoe store. He needs new sneakers, but then I had a vision of him just running and hiding behind all those stacks of shoes and me just losing my mind. Then I remembered the pet store. Now, you know things must have been dire for me to want to enter a pet store. Granted, there was the possibility that we would see a puppy or two wandering the aisles, but really what types of pets do they have there? None I want in my house.

We got into the elevator that reeked so horribly of piss that I had to cover my mouth with my shirt to breathe, while simultaneously trying to get QT to not touch one thing in there. "Why?" he kept asking. "For the love of God kid--can't you smell the rank, malodorous stank emanating from this metal box of germs?"

Finally the doors opened and we walked towards the pet store.

The pet store has its own type of gross smell. That kind of cage liner/pellet food combination that is immediately nauseating and turns one into a mouth breather.

But QT loved the fish and we watched them for a few minutes before heading over towards the ferrets, the birds (the birds!), the hamsters, gerbils, mice and rats, before making our way over towards the reptiles. I am always on edge in these stores, I can't believe that all the animals are caged. I am just waiting for some sort of lizard to crawl up my back or something. Breath Bean, breath (but only through your mouth), but I am conscious of the fact that my kids might actually not care and that they might be interested in the things they are seeing. I rattled off the names of the geckos and the lizards, we talked about what types of food the reptiles ate. We were happy to run into a dog in the aisle, an actual real pet, we contemplated the best type of cat house/scratching post and when the text came from my sister that Dusty was finally done we headed back up that urine-soaked elevator and met up with everyone else.

Three things I learned from this outing.

1. QT might be in that sweet spot of an age where you should never, ever take him to a theater. Perhaps when he is 4 he will have a better attention span.

2. Instead of trying to find a rest stop on the way home, just stop at the closest elevator. Clearly, the two are interchangable.

3. Sometimes it just isn't in the cards to see a subpar Disney film, sometimes you just have to talk about Geckos and pretend that 5 ferrets sleeping on top of each other is cute, but whatever it is that you are doing try to engage and interact with that incredibly active kid of yours but for the love of all things good and holy do not let him touch anything in that elevator.