The only beast I saw during that movie was my 3 year-old.
Virtually raise your hand if you’ve seen the new Beauty and the Beast remake? When the movie first came out I went to the theater with my two girls, bought the candy and lemonade, and sat though the movie. BUT can I say that I actually watched it? Nope. While I can’t say that I was able to enjoy the movie, I did learn two valuable and difficult mommy-lessons, courtesy of my 3 year-old…
I have an amazing babysitter who comes one day a week. She watches the kids for 4-5 hours while I run errands, go to doctor’s appointments, maybe get my hair highlighted. It’s time that I carve out to take care of myself, it’s time I look forward to every week and it’s a necessity. When Beauty and the Beast first came out I knew I wanted to take Faith. Figuring that I would take advantage of her pre-school schedule and my SAHM life, I bought us tickets for a Thursday when our babysitter would be at the house. This way I could leave the baby at home and avoid the theater crowds. Now, this is where I made my first mistake. I gave up my me-time. Second mistake? I have a thing about not leaving Fara out. She is my middle and I feel very protective of her feelings. I never want her to feel left out or left behind. So with that in the back of my mind, I made my second mistake and I ordered 3 tickets.
To say that it didn’t go well would be a severe understatement. I have found that I have to be very literal with Fara. She stopped touching, hitting and pushing other kids when I taught her the rule ‘We don’t touch the other kids.’ It stuck with her and she has literally not touched another child (except for her siblings in a rough way) since. So before we went into the theater I prepped her.
Me: Fara, we have to be very quiet during the movie. The rule is: We use our inside voices during movies.’ Got it?
Fara: Got it. We use our inside voices during movies.
What I forgot to say? We don’t do gymnastics in the movie theater isle, climb and roll all over the empty seats, stick our boots in the air, army crawl on the movie theater floor, and we do not under any circumstance eat food off of the movie theater floor. My mistake. At one point I was sitting next to Fara on the floor of the movie theater just to keep her occupied. Yup. I used her jacket to sit on in an attempt to save at least one of us from the germs of the movie theater carpet. I spent the nearly two hours working my butt off to keep her calm, entertained and to not distract the rest of the theater. The situation ended with someone complaining (a very old someone) and me dragging Fara out under my arm. Apparently the other theater goers didn’t appreciate Belle’s face being blocked by a pair of hot pink cowgirl boots. Beauty and the Fara-Beast. I do have to give her credit though. She followed the rule I gave her and was very quiet the entire time. Oh, the irony.
Lesson 1: Never give up quality alone-time to do something ‘magical’ with your kids. Does it sound selfish to say it out-loud? Yes, but you’ve earned that time and you deserve it. By giving that time back to your kids, you are opening yourself up to be sh*t on…figuratively and maybe literally.
Lesson 2: Listen to your gut when it tells you that some things are not meant for toddlers. Bottom line? Fara was too young for me to expect her to sit through an almost 2-hour movie that wasn’t animated. In some instances, leave the toddler out. You can make it up to her later, much later.
I owe Fara a big ‘thank you’ for her continued lessons…and I don’t mean that sarcastically.
Mommy Diatribes
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