Tuesday night is half-off at the Picture Show, a “dollar” theater (movies are actually $1.50). Since this was Lord Herndon’s last week of holiday, and since Princess and Sweet Pea had done such a terrific job when we took them to see Tangled, we thought it would be fun to go as a family to see Toy Story 3.
That was our first mistake.
Our second was forgetting that, not too long ago, our tender-hearted son had run sobbing from the living room to bury his face in my legs and cry uncontrollably. What scared him? The tall Gingerbread Man from Shrek 2.
But in our defense, we had only heard good things about Toy Story 3. How it celebrated loyalty and courage, and how it told the bittersweet tale of growing up and leaving childhood behind.
We never knew there would be an evil monkey.
Scary, right? See Woody’s face? That’s how Prince looked when he climbed into Lord Herndon’s lap and started bawling, right there in the theater.
So we left.
The movie cost us $3.00 (well, $6.50 when you include the drink), but we are still paying for it. Lord Herndon said we are on the “lay awake” plan, because nearly every night since we walked out of that theater, we have had to convince Prince to stay in his room at bedtime, comfort him in the middle of the night, and then finally succumb in the early morning and let him sleep on the floor of our room. He’s now terrified of his Curious George doll, and even Princess’ CareBears remind him of Lots-O’-Huggin Bear.
We still celebrated New Year’s together, Lord Herndon and I, even though we didn’t have long to wait by the time we finally got the kids asleep.
