Without much fanfare, Rachel went to her first movie in a theater last week. I had always imagined this would be a calm and sacred affair–a well-planned out event with perhaps a grandparent or cousins coming along. This was all thrown to the wind when I got an e-mail from Rachel’s old playgroup suggesting that everyone meet after lunch (after school) to see Pooh’s Hefalump at a local theater. I was hesitant at first. After all, I had Hannah. You know, the climber, the wiggler, the one who is still working on bringing in four molars and four incisors. Don’t ask me why, I hesitated….and then said, I’ll see you there. So, there we were. Rachel was as happy as a clam sitting between old friends, nursing a sugar-loaded drink, eating popcorn, and cracking up at the antics of Roo and his Hefalump friend. Meanwhile, croaching down, I chased Hannah through the empty rows in the front of the theater. Everytime she saw me coming after her all hunched up, she started cackling loudly and continued running to the other side of the theater. When we weren’t playing chase through the seats, we were roaming the hallway outside the theater making way too much noise. Or, I was yanking Hannah away from playing peek-a-boo with the theater door and letting light in. Or, I was picking her up from throwing herself on the floor with her thumb on her mouth. Did I tell you Hannah is extremely heavy? Did I tell you she didn’t have a decent nap that morning? As the movie started winding down, we went to our seats again and Hannah sweetly poked her head in the seats ahead of us to say hello to Rachel. Afterwards, my mom friends chatted about what a sweet movie it was. Sweating, I had little to say. I hadn’t watched the movie. Rachel ran around with her friends until I had to take her home crying, because she was due for a nap and I had gone past the point of a dignified exit. She was fried. Then after some more crying at home, we all went down for naps at the same time. Allelujah!

In December I took Rachel to her first ballet. This was a well-planned night, and eagerly anticipated by me. I took her by myself. No toddler sister in sight. It was a fantastic local ballet company. The ballet was very kid-friendly, better than the nutcracker. The dancing was great. I loved it. After 10 minutes, Rachel started whispering to me, asking if we could go home. I insisted we stay. This continued on and off, but she made it through, and even enjoyed the second act. She did wiggle a bit and was in and out of my lap. I was proud of her though. She didn’t put up a fuss and at 3 1/2 yeard old was probably the youngest one there. On the way back I told her so. You were good and really patient, I told her. She thought about it and said, “No I wasn’t.” Later in conversation she said, “Four year olds are patient at the ballet, not three year olds. I’ll be patient at the ballet when I’m four.”