Moving Pictures

My mom and I took Alyssa and Olivia to see Oz: The Great and Powerful this weekend.

I liked it…what I saw of it. Olivia had to ‘pee’ at least six times during the movie. In all honesty, it was probably too intense for Olivia. There were a few points where she had to bury her face in my shoulder.

The first time I took Alyssa to a movie, she was four years old. Before that point, I just wasn’t sure she could sit still or even stand the volume at which movies are shown these days. Alyssa was that kid who couldn’t stand the sound of automatic toilets flushing or motorcycles going by.

She was fine at the movie though.

This time? She managed to sit through two and a half hours of Oz without having to go to the bathroom. She rolled her eyes at me and Olivia when we got up every fifteen to twenty minutes.

I wonder if I sometimes overestimate Olivia’s maturity. I know that right now, at six, she isn’t where Alyssa was at four. But I don’t want to limit O’s experiences just because she’s on the immature side.

Obviously, I don’t want to bother other people by giving my immature child experiences she might not be ready for either.

So much to think about.

Next time, I think we’ll find a more child-friendly movie. Or, as we’ve done in the past, leave her at home with Tom.

In the end, it wasn’t that big a deal to take her to the bathroom seventy billion times but I did pay to see that movie and neither of us really saw much of it.

In my defense, I didn’t let her climb the stairs along the side of the theater like she wanted. She told me, “I’m just going to go to the top and come right back.”

I told her she wasn’t going to do that, not even once. She sighed heavily and declared she had to pee. Hmmm…