"Ferdinand"

Tonite, we took the boys to their first movie in a theatre.

Finally.

I say "finally," because we've talked about doing it many times. In fact, we were settled that "Cars 3" would be Jones's first cinema experience (when it was out, we didn't think Freddie was ready), but movies come and go so much more quickly now, and by the time we realized it was out, we'd already missed our window.

Then Jeremy brought it up as something fun to do for Freddie's birthday. The timing wasn't right, though - it only showed at 4:35, before Jeremy gets off, and 7:10, which meant them going to bed WAY late. But this afternoon, we decided to give it a try. We met our friends the Greenes - their son, Gideon, is big buddies with the boys - and saw "Ferdinand," which is probably the PERFECT first movie for two little boys.

I was nervous going in.

I knew Jones could EASILY sit through a movie, but I was afraid he'd freak out about the size of the screen and the volume of the soundtrack. I knew those things wouldn't bother Freddie, but I was afraid he'd get restless - FAST.

Turns out, though, my fears on both counts were unfounded. While Jones nervously said, "It's gonna be loud," when we sat down in our front row recliners, I didn't tell him I'd brought his noise cancelling headphones in case he needed them (and he didn't!).

And Freddie got a little restless towards the end, but he was pretty much perfect up until that point. When we sat down, he said, "Wow! What a BIG cartoon." Then, he whispered something to me during the movie and added, "No more talking. If somethin's funny, we can laugh, right?"  I told him we could and felt super impressed at how he'd taken our "You must be quiet" lecture to heart. 

At different points during the movie, both boys cuddled up to me - or held my hand. Freddie even shared my seat for a few minutes. I imagined us enjoying family movie nites for as long as the boys will let us go with them - which I hope will be a long, long time.

Also, it was roughly $80 for this family of four to go to a matinee and eat popcorn. Totally insane but for today's amazing experience, it was totally worth it.